Molecular Time

MOLECULAR TIME
Christa

Millions of moments—
most phantasmal dots,
few planets amidst the
fog of dots— form a
galactic web of our
memory. Pestled down
with age and growing
fatigue, finally washed
away downstream into
the vague ocean of
personality.

As Mother Nature’s
grip pulls your toes
into the soil,
reminding you of your
final bed, a tsunami of
panic becomes the
forefront of your
unconscious, paddled
against the mediocre
resistance to maintain
mundanity.

You admit bottomless
ambitions are drowned
under the viscosity of denial,
in a desperate attempt of
self-awareness that you
convince yourself is a
salvation for your inaptitude.
You carry your victimhood
with pride and pick at the
scar of a failed dream you
once imagined. You cling to it
as it is what preserves your
sanity and dignity, justifying
failure of a promised youth.

The little molecule of a
dream flits through your
peripheral. Look directly at it,
and it vanishes into the blur
of a pulsating ocean. Waves
erode your dreams into
grains of sand. You sit under
the density of your regrets as
its pressure surmounts your
present existence. The years
splashed over your eyes and
you begin to see the blur
clear, only for the ocean to
dry into your wrinkles.

A puddle of water remains
of an ocean and a heap of
sand shadows your sight.
You pick a grain of sand and
let it drip into the puddle,
which swells on contact. You
pick another grain of sand
and drip into the puddle, and
it swells more. One grain
after another and the
change is indistinguishable.
You surrender to the chill of
the shadow and lay in the
sand that engulfs your body.

You will never know
the point at which a
puddle becomes an
ocean.