If everything that’s going to happen has already happened,
could you change my life with a word?
Does the change in my purse keep that man in the street
in the street instead of a hearse?
I heard he was always going to live
from a scientist,
that no lack of change
could change the fact that I gave him the change,
because the change was always there,
and I was always going to do it,
and I changed nothing.

But I felt changed, still reeling from the possibility
that my small offer could save someone from death,
And short-changed by the short answer
that such is time
and such is breath.
Nothing more magic than tea in the morning, he told me,
as I had flashbacks of steaming tea and someone holding me,
when I needed it,
that could have saved my life, I think,
but time had already seen to it.

So, could you change my life with a word?
There are things, I think, that if I hadn’t heard,
I’d be an actress, not a poet,
I’d never even know it,
I could Marilyn Monroe it –
beautiful, famous and dead
instead of the opposite,
mutable, aimless, but well-read.

Not understanding the gravity of the situation
maybe I could warp time to suit me
But that’s a mass effect, a contradiction,
being so small yet so multitudinous, simultaneously
Two things at once, or more,
well that’s the heart of every human core.

Because it changes you,
knowing nothing could have changed,
you see your whole life in a very strange way.
You’re no longer writing your story, yet to be ended
but reading through early chapters, knowledge suspended.
So maybe it’s not your life that changes,
but you.
If time correlates with our need to be free,
then that right there,
that’s some really super symmetry.

So, could you change me with a word?
Because I can’t time travel back to when I didn’t know how it felt
to be told that I was beautiful,
or to be told that I was ugly,
I can’t fuse the blank slate state with the confusion that tugs me
into the haze of self-perception,
I can’t find solid footing now,
I guess that’s sublimation.

Could you change me with a word?
Because I can’t see any other reason why when we’ve come this far in scientific understanding,
it’s still possible for you to make me feel so two-dimensional,
and no matter is unintentional, see
The words I’ve heard defy time and space in my memory,
providing a long list of reasons why I am me,
language has made up almost every degree of my identity,
all things tie together, that’s my string theory.

You could change me with a word, maybe that’s science fiction,
but I like to think that’s what life’s about,
Transforming each other – the slow burn and the friction,

and that scientist changed me,

no matter his doubts.