You can lose yourself at 2am
Trapped somewhere between
Yesterday and ten years ago
Worrying ahead
Peering into the impenetrable fog
Of a life yet to be lived
As if thinking your way carefully
Is some sort of prevention device
For mistaken history
Fate does not require compliance
It is relentless in its punctuality
Turning up day after day after day
There is no such thing as wait
Just a moment
until I’m ready
And if I just think a little longer
Here in this corner of unreality
Things yesterday
Could have been different
The impermanence of time
Slips by
Just this second holds a way
To make any kind of change
But we throw away the golden sacred moment
Clinging to over thinking
Thinking
We could be better
Do better
If we just think
About it
A little bit longer
And then there is the abdication altogether of self
To stand on the threshold
Of eternity
To say
“only this doorway counts”
And arrive at a discomfort so almighty
That it is instantly regretted
I ask myself firmly
To stay HERE regardless of come what may
Then a notification pings
I’m gone again
Lazily,
gratefully
slipping away
I’ll come back in a minute
I promise
Already scrolling
I’ll be back
But I’m gone again
And it’s 2am
With a page full of worries
As if writing them down
Brings any kind of sanity
A litany of changes to make
Empty boxes awaiting ticks
Any moment all of this activity
Will force the escapee back
Back to this moment
Yet the only person who can do anything
Is the one that isn’t here
instead she jumps through mental doorways
And simply disappears
*header photo: our dry and dislodged rain gauge snapped on my way out the gate for a walk this morning. The lid disappeared a long time ago, blown away somewhere in the paddock.
Photography brings me into the moment. The noticing of something. In that way it is invaluable and a little ironic. Because the device I use to snap the photo steals my attention so readily the second I arrive home.
But I’ve written that down, I’ve noticed that now. Just the same as I have a hundred times and in at least five different poems on this blog over the years
Which sadly says. Noticing something doesn’t change anything at all, it never did. But we just keep doing it. Noticing, that is. And writing about it.
