Keyhole Theory

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you shape one elastic future

you remember one fixed past

 

you step backward through snow

blindly choosing a best path

watching your footprints recede into where you were

the snake swims upriver

writhing against the current without going forward

the snake knows no curves no shore

the snake thinks it is an arrow in flight

you were to remember your future

you were to make decisions that affect your past

you were to walk through snow

stepping into footprints already there

erasing them

you were to explore futures

you were to explore pasts

you were to move as a smooth human blur

from origin to destination

never arriving

photographic film with endless exposure time

every moment of your life at once

a flame passes through a candle

without consuming its wick

strands of seaweed unfurl in the river

a river were to change course but never arrive

a river were to move not with its current but perpendicular to it

a river were to flow slowly, erratically sideways not rapidly downstream

a river were older than the water in it

dammed damned it would always find new courses

slither sideways across time

fork

alter every second of your elastic life

simultaneously constantly eternally

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