I see you. You, wishing to be back there. A prophet now,
then
you would already see everything
ahead
of you. Being just in time you would see fear in their faces, but you wouldn't be able to sympathize.

You would ask questions that you did not want answered, but would speak aloud so that time could record your inquiry. Falling back to caverns
deep within your sinuses, you would taste
the mycological networks,
and
realize that it is hardly more than a pattern.

To go back is to mourn the death of
every version of yourself. Fraught
sleeves, tattered pant suits dragged begrudingly
through Boswellian resin. The versions of you
that didn't exist, all aggrieved but slowly learning
to accept the shadows.

The version of you that does exist, now
an extended, throbbing pain
slowly ceasing,
bound to disappoint the version of you that may exist later
then, without choosing,
being the nature of patterns.