Serendipity

The island in the distance. Where I once was. Where I've never been. The scale in her chest weighing matchsticks. The yardstick in her skin. Measuring how far we've come. Let's go back. Let's pretend we never left. Small worlds that let us choose. How we can manipulate them. Tiny boxes. Broken crowns. Negotiating their princes.

Was once. Not to be again. The curdle of atoms as time tells. The stories I never have. She scribbles on her pages. Numbers frail with sound. To imagine that it once was found. This lost that I covet. Still alive in the extremities of dying mechanics.

The island in her cunt wrestling with the waters for a better perspective. The now in her fist beating the math. As the numbers come undone. The edge. She says. Is near enough. I can go there. And I can leave it.

I am then. I am now. I am when. The words inflate my veins with all the lies I've always believed in. The truth doesn't care. At all. If I ever should find it.

I strap myself up against the motor. The years humming in vague obsession. The machine takes me apart. Until everything is as small as I am. I draw the curtains closed and ask the glass to break.

The time machine is obvious. But its controls are hard to find.