The time traveler’s memoir

I remember the moment we learned 

             how to rewrite our potential—the sky opened up 

                           like time-lapse flowers blooming 

                    in a desaturated landscape—entire timelines 

               braided together into a single chronology

           in which there was nothing left

             to sell or exploit. We crave origin stories 

                      because they have the potential to inflict 

                                   the most damage 

                                           against the side 

                           whose only tool is to lie to us. 

When the sky had finally settled and our feet 

           trusted the earth again                                   

                         I looked through keyholes 

  watched people argue about 

              the good old days, their soft comforts dressed 

                                    in black-and-white film grain 

                       and the kind of comfort some used as a shield—

             those who resurrected words 

                     to shorthand ignorance;

those who found themselves shortchanged 

 by every step forward.  

Gone were the days we threw parades for acts of slaughter, 

     when our soldiers returned from war 

          with pastel petals blooming in the hollows

     of their cheeks. For years they spoke 

              in violent silences, in blanks 

              wide enough to expose the guilt they felt 

                      for making it back alive.

                  We buried the dead facedown

              so they wouldn’t return to force us 

                           to confront our failures.

                 Anything to distract us from their screams—

            no longer would we bare witness to further atrocities. 

        At times we wondered if this would ever truly be enough 

             to absolve ourselves of the pasts we’d written

                  or cast in stone and marble.

In the distant future I watched my children 

       stepping into VR lakes and rivers 

    from the safety of our panic room. 

          They asked me what it felt like to float 

               in a body of unchlorinated water. I told them

                   it was like being swallowed by the past 

      and the future at the same time under a sapphire sky, 

         a feeling of being unbuoyed by what has come before 

                  and what will emerge from the depths 

                        of our imaginations. The sharpest sting

                                is a memory of something 

                              that will never come to pass

                no matter how hard you work towards 

          building a world that might sustain it.

No matter how far back I take myself in either direction

        I am lost—I was lost—I will be lost         in a time 

    when we cloaked our secrets in a mountain’s shadow,

         when we threw our pain at the sky and prayed 

         to other powers to take it from us, when a glimpse 

              of the sun reminds us of the anticipation 

                    that scratches the back of our throats—

a kind of tarot, perhaps a warning. I remember 

      how we were so cynical about change

    that we compelled ourselves to embrace 

                             stillness as a way to cope with 

                       the sound of every approaching disaster.

                            I remember stripping thunder from the storm 

                                     to soothe its spirit. I will remember 

                           that there are those who survived history, 

                     which means it will not hurt others to learn 

                 from it. The turning of tides and blind eyes

            finds its way into our bodies, uproots 

                           every memory that echoes 

                   across the many paths carved out for us. 

          We are all arrangements drifting between whatever

      makes the most sense at any given time. I remind

                myself that this time will soon cease to exist.

                   That time and next time will roll into one

              streamlined version of our once and future selves.

  The waters, real and imagined, pool at my feet. 

                   I sit and wait for the moment to come and go,

                          to pass into our collective being.