Where You'll Be Next Year

I think next year you'll be in London
Studying Gothic architecture

Why London?  And why Gothic architecture?
And why Gothic architecture in London?
I'm not even sure that fits

I don't know, it just seems like a likely career path
For a hip, grad student
Who wears big sunglasses
And drinks various teas
And paints and stuff

I think next year you'll be on some island
Working with the native kids
Teaching them to read
And, like, building huts and stuff

There's something vaguely racist about that assumption

How do you figure?

Native kids?  Building huts?  What deserted island in the Pacific am I headed to here?
Or do you mean, like, Jamaica or Haiti
In which case, you're just really ill-informed

I am really ill-informed
That's why I have to go to London
And study Gothic architecture
So I can become worldly
And know things
That I don't know now
In London I will learn
To be a person

I think next year you'll get married
To a guy who wears bow ties
Named, um, Daniel
Not Dan, not Danny
But Daniel

I think next year you'll knock up a girl
Named Fredrika and you'll end up with twin boys
Named Colby and Colson

I think next year you'll buy a hybrid
And learn to cook
And reconnect with your mother

I think next year you'll develop a drinking problem
And a gambling problem
And you'll probably get eight tattoos
And maybe a piercing somewhere insane
Like, on your eyelid or something

I think next year you'll take a photo of yourself
Watching a sunset somewhere
Wrapped in a Donna Karan shawl
Holding a glass of wine
And make it your Facebook photo

I think next year your Facebook photo will be
You, onstage, with a spotlight on you
Looking reflective
And charged with all kinds of energy

I think next year you'll be calmer

I think next year you'll be older
But...better, somehow
Not that you aren't--

What if you were with me next year?
What if that was what happened?
What if I'm in that sunset picture with you
And I go to London with you
And I drive around in that hybrid with you
And when I'm looking out into that audience from onstage
I'm really just looking at you
And that's the energy in me
That's what's radiating off of me
The knowledge that you're there
What if that's where you are next year?

...And what about Fredrika and the twins?

You'll be a home wrecker, I guess

...I can live with that, considering the home is purely theoretical

You're a theoretical hussy

And I'm with you?

And you're with me

Sounds like you better start looking for a sunset

Oh, don't worry
I got that covered