The Illusion of Time
Do you ever wonder where wafts of steam travel
or second-guess how many minutes have passed
since you sat blowing into a hot cup of tea
and when you carry its tepid surface
to take a seventh revolution around a neon sun
do you check if the clock’s hands accidentally fell
into the speed of light
like the wintry morning
when you snoozed your alarm to silence
pushed a moment or two
to tailgate the three dots to slumber
Here’s the thing about time —
she stands ephemerally split between your eyes
her empty and full curves undulating
across the tidal shift from sun to moon
until a weary eyelash blinks back
the tip-tip of hourglass sand
And when you stare into the distance
hot with the moral compass
of a fabric tearing between seams
You think that no matter how close you watch her
time will slip
between holes you’ve forgotten to patch
farther and farther away
flickering lost to another universe
beneath a drapery of stars
No matter how much you want her to move
she will loiter in the gloating arms of the past
for what is time
if not the warped wormhole of an old postcard
eddying asunder notes to a forgotten song
And what is time
if not the pin and needles
of a seconds-hand dragging
within and out of earshot
the fumbling keys
to an out-of-sync rhyme.
Notes: This poem is inspired by a VSauce video that I watched. It talks about the time illusion across different events and ages — based on how full it feels or how empty. Time, in all its mystical vagaries, is a captivating study and his analysis here sums it all. You can watch it here:
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