may be extended
through many different
time dimensions
without every really "belonging"
to any of them,
so "i"
is a shibboleth,
a torture device
of convenience,
a lever used to prod
parity into abeyance—
better yet:
a clever code
used to bootstrap
the rest of you
into continuing its
sentence.
Meanwhile, the past
and the present
are your two
divorced parents:
divisive
but just a little
too significant—
indispensable
to your very
survival, in fact—
yet acutely
and instructively
unwilling
or unable
to even so much as
coexist.
