Once I dabbled,
in the history of my own past.
It burnt me,
but not too bad.
I pulled from the heat.
I withdrew from sensation.
I lapsed into dreams and expectations.
I still dabble,
from time to time.
It's my present now,
and doesn't burn me.
But the spark reminds me,
I'm still alive.
It ends as it begins, searching for the centre.
It begins as it ends with the placement of the compass's point.
We all search for meaning.
We all start from somewhere.
We all end somewhere else.
It endures as we understand meaning.
It endures as we realize truth.
But, in the truth we are foiled by context and time and perspective,
And our meanings start to grow loose.
It ends, as it must, in our centre.
It begins again as the circle completes.
We all endure as we search and end as we begin and forever continuously create.
Wrinkles connect our present.
They crisscross our skin and lives.
They are reminders of our journey.
They are a constant retelling of mistakes and joys.
Wrinkles disconnect our past.
They crisscross our assumptions and desires.
They are a remembrance of what might have been.
They are a consistent reimagining of desires and heartaches.
Wrinkles reconnect our future.
They crisscross our beliefs and our failures.
They are a reminder of what was not.
They are a convenient misremembering of our loves.
Time doesn't fill every box.
Time isn't equal in its calculations.
My time to grieve and love and desire and guess at the distance is calculated in the moment and in the reactions to the present moment.
Time is a complicated calculus.
Time is written on my face and explored in the faces of those around me.
Time is experienced in the body and understood in the mind and in this distance we find the equation we all are seeking to understand.
