I.
when you told me then, that you were 34
and that you looked at the stars for comfort
your voice caused an invisible blanket
of intense unsettling energy
to swirl into existence
suddenly appearing through the air from nothingness
its unseen colors lingering a bit
before tickling my ear and entering my head
a doubt-killing arrow
whose fingers shocked my hollow brain
into sudden alertness
I could bridge the gap of 10 years.
10 years would be easy.
I could add beauty and color in your projected gray life
I could be your salt.
laugh-er and listener extraordinaire
the fresh pure breeze of youth you seem to always feel you've lost
contrast to the chaos you've lived to rant about
to write about
maybe I could amuse, or better yet, amaze you
and enter the hourglass of your life,
wedging myself in the middle, to block the falling sand
disarm you with wit I thought I had
II.
You are 36.
and 10 years seem to stretch farther and farther
you move too fast, and I can't keep up
you and me,
we are in this space
where time is nothing but distance.
as I remember,
a mosaic of sharpened dull emotions shape-shifts
unfounded optimism
unbearable lightness
shy, certain, earnest confidence
is now a montage of moments
moving inside this archaic analog film strip
playing on a slow loop inside my head
slow enough that I can count each hole on its sides
slow enough that each divider is not a divider
but prison bars in a lonely cell
slower so I can analyze and analyze
so slow it stopped making sense
so slow
that
I am
trapped
bound in the infinite frames
of an endless instant
