Time does not exist
Or so I am told
An artificial instrument
created by man
As it turns
the Earth shrugs it's shoulders
She doesn't know what to think either

Time is not linear
That is what I hear
Everything has already happened
and is happening at the same time

So...wait.

I imagine it like one gigantic explosion
Our lives play out
Everything happens separately and at once
My ten year old self and my eighty year old self are one in the same
I have heard that

There are some people I wish I could talk to again
The ten year old smiles and continues the conversation
I sit here and think that if everything has happened and is happening all at the same time

Then

I am still having those conversations
with Living Ghosts

It's hard to crawl out of a bar
     When everyone keeps
    Stomping on your hands

Make no mistake make no excuse
It's not your fault they are obtuse
Serenely synching your tie
Air cut about to die
You are not theirs to abuse

A tiny army
armed with tiny knives
slowly cut away at me
They cut away my skin
leaving behind wrinkles
they cut away memories
and tastebuds,
hair, color, and sensations
Every day steady chip, chipping
away on me.
The bravest move I make
is to get up every morning
The hot water of the shower
hitting my spine is the jolt
I need, to keep the army away
Steady now, hold together,
here they come again.

The heat of the mornings are
slowly being replaced by autumn's approaching coolness
It looks like another summer for the books
It is harder to make memories now

Those forever days
Hours spent at the pool
Surviving off of Goldfish and cookie sleeves
While hair went blonde and skin went brown
The paradoxical AC freezing the skin off of your bones
But you can't retreat to your blanket without preparing yourself
for dinner

Those endless hours spent alone or with company
Doing everything and nothing
A place where Kokapeli's pizza still exists
Or experiencing that fender ****** as a witness
The girl gets out to check the damage
She is wearing only a bikini
I felt like I was in an Updike story
Only in the summer

It dropped upon all of us like
the cold dough of a drop biscuit
The baking is up to you

build a fire, soup on the stove,
sipping the steam off of a mug
of coffee,
hot shower
The shovel waits in quiet reserve near
the front door

Winter is not supposed to be here
But someone forgot to tell her
I pull out the cookie sheet
The cold dough
Transformed
Into the golden brown
Moments of my day

I would see him in the mornings
He
Like me liked to get to work early
gently puffing away on his cigarette
The Man in the building who smokes
I thought he was a little scary
at first
seemed grumpy and aloof
gray and wrinkled
lines forming around his mouth
like bowing natives around a fire
The Man in the building who smokes
was actually kind of funny
when I (you?) got to know him
Standing outside
rain - sleet - snow
more dependable than the mail
or our couriers
He didn't take anyone's guff
and could tell you a million jokes
if you had a bad day
He even figured out where the buildings property stopped
so he could continue being
The Man in the building who smokes
I took some days off
and then it got busy
days turning into weeks
I asked my co worker if he has seen
The Man in the building who smokes.