Trompe l'Oeil

Bubbles expanding. Strings entangling. A million universes. All the same as the next. Bubbles multiplying. Parent carbon growing distant. Bubbles breaking. Life takes up space. Space takes up time. And we have very little of it with which to play.

She'd tell my fortune in playing cards and empty candy wrappers. I was to live a thousand years and have several hundred wives. She'd say real was in my pockets. If I would only mend the holes. I'd find it.

Corks on the floor. Like basic arithmetic. Minus the flesh. Divide by when. Expansion. The bubbles. Becoming more of each other. The bubbles. Disappearing into the concept of multiplication. What is there. What is gone. All the same.

The universe. On its crutches. Chasing after. The empty bottles still repeating her name.