Watchmaker, Watchmaker, make me a watch.
Make time go slower but never let it stop
And speed up the ticking when the going gets rough,
‘Cause to me all this trying it’ll never be enough.

A smothered cry
The sands of time
Leaking through a crack in the hourglass.
Just my luck,
The sands of time
Will only last as long as they last.

Watchmaker, Watchmaker, make me a watch.
Make me a new one ‘cause I don’t like my clock.
The minutes seem to crawl by, but only when there’s pain,
So all this relativity is driving me insane.

With shocking speed,
The sands of time
Pressing down and putting out the flame.
Don’t let me lose
The sands of time
Flowing ‘tween my fingers like the rain.

I have found a watch
Keeping time perfectly,
Beautiful gears and cogs click, shift, wound tight,
And the Theist beside me says:
                "Such a thing could not come into being by chance!
                Surely there is an Intelligent Designer."
I could shrug or nod but instead I look closer
At the watch
And the way it grinds its gears.
I see a bigger cog pinch a smaller cog;
I see something with teeth bite something--I can hear it now--
That is screaming.
And suddenly each second reveals
Another tooth, another claw,
The weaker parts are torn to pieces or swallowed whole.
The strongest survive for a while
Until time kills them too.
Death by life by death by life by death,
Pain impressed upon them all,
The only purpose to be heard: the passage of tick tock tick tock tooth claw; of time.
Unless (until?)
The clock wears down
And time ceases to exist.

I turn to the Theist beside me and say:
                "Intelligent Design? No friend, it is Ethical Design
                That demands an investigation."

I wonder, sometimes, what it's like,
Life, beyond this pale, grey sky,
Damaged, torn from horror and spite,
Is this world insane, or am I?
.

Once a meadow green, lays now this land barren,
This silence sickly, was once broken by the music of the raven,
Sunlight once flooded bright, the bleak blemish behind which I now cower,
The landscape of mind, was once where had bloomed the flowers.
.

And as these walls close in, and fades away the place,
Weak, trembling, writhing, I give in,
As I look at the white cloaked mans' face,
And his nod of approval, as I fall into the void within.
.
A sea of white.
The raven from childhood.
.
Sing to me raven, I beg, take me there,
To the place where I was alone and happy,
I begin to wonder, as he silently stares,
Was a curse of time, this, or am I the watchmaker?

Grandfather's whistle
Blew down the chipped clock,
Face in shock, broken glass.

Glasses. He was blind to its sound,
Faintly tinged, his arm and red,
Cheeks sallow like a hound's.

He stood there frozen:
Shoulders taut and brazen
But eyelids twitching,

Fingers quivering
As he balled his hand into a fist.

frantic antics rewire my brain,
almost as if it were never a brain at all—
circuits and switches and copper thread,
my computerized cerebellum, my inorganic head,
as biology becomes machine.

what powers my body,
this metallic monstrosity?
there is no plug, no battery—
only the cogs and gears of a watchmaker's fever dream
and sheer, dumb luck.

because, while they stood around
and waited idly for my parts to rust,
i was killing time in a vacuum,
ignoring the earnest embraces of air and rain.

and thus, here i rest,
with the sound of my own meek ticking
thrumming against these pink asylum walls

but because i stayed awake to tell the tale,
and to rub their sordid noses in the dirt,
i suppose my isolation was worth it.

God Almighty. It puts the fear in you.

Jesus Christ. Again?

Yes, again. Don’t be a ***.

Oh please.

Jesus.

A hanging silence.

You know William Paley?

No. Go on.

Oh. Paley’s Watch?

******* go, James.

Uh, Paley’s Watch is a theory that the universe is too complex to exist by chance, and therefore there must be a creator. I mean, just like the existence of a watch presupposes a watchmaker ‘cause it’s too complex to be there by chance.

And you eat that?

Yes, or something similar. What offends you so ******* much anyway? So I believe-

It’s defeatist. Jesus Christ, the only reason you and anyone else believes this dogshit is ‘cause you’re ******* terrified of dying, and the reason a ******* graveyard puts the fear into your thick skull is ‘cause you want to join them when you croak. That’s what it is, it’s ******* insurance.

Another silence.

Okay. Alright, fine, it’s insurance. But I am playing this insurance, see, into my benefit. I believe in the creator, and if it turns out he’s watching me he’ll put in the good word and I spend my afterlife in eternal sunshine, and if he’s a scam like you say it is I join you in blackness or hellfire. I win either way.

Oh, very faithful, doggy. Arf arf.

Oh, for the love-

What’s life worth if you’re so sure where you’re going? I reckon I’d rather drink and steal **** and burn in hellfire than **** away my life in the service of some shitbird in the sky who may or may not exist.
Jesus, mother-

Stop ******* blaspheming.

********, James.

'Hopes and Dreams'...explores the limitations of perception in more than three dimensions plus time.


I

Uncoupling hopes from truth sometimes reveals reality
Which is hard to bear
According to Eliot.
The difference between hope and what is real
Is sometimes the basis for laughter
Or tears…..
In equal measure
Depending on the deficit
Between reality, and the reality of hoping.
Two sides of the same coin
The masks of theatre,
Comedy and tragedy.

Yet reality is what we face day to day
Uncoupled from hope
An atheistic vision of what is true
In which dreams expire.

Hopes, dreams and reality
Congregate in theistic minds
As a woven integrity
But is the congress true?

Atheist and theist in perpetual conflict
One offering only truth,
The other hoping that belief is true
But, to what ….?
In this world caught in three dimensions
But do not forget time that marks when
We are born and when we die
According to Ecclesiastes.

The atheism of truths of a certain kind
Confined by the question asked
And who is asking, and the way of asking,
Atheist and theist talking at each other
But not in conversation
A dialogue of deafness to other points of view
An unbridged chasm for all of human history.

The certainty of truth is one problem,
Because certainty brooks no other view
But remember the constraints of truth’s
discovery and then assertion
In three dimensions, and do not forget time.

Unwittingly Carl Sagan made the point in flatland
A place of two dimensions,
Breadth and width, but no height
Infinitesimally flat, thin
Flat and thin, so that an apple
In its plump three dimensional roundness
Made its visit, announced its presence
But left only an infinitesimally flat, thin
Impression of its visitation,
With its announcement seemingly coming from wherever,
Infinite confusion.
For flatlanders who perceived a visitation
Without explanation
A mystery within which we experience
The determinism of truth
Not qualified by the dimensions
In which it’s made
Or defined
To the confusion of those who question truth,
If truth means the assertion of certainty.

Was it for flatlanders first cause?
Just like Paley’s watchmaker of the watch
found on the heath,
Each trapped in their respective
Two dimensions and three dimensions
Limited by their dimensionality
Of what they could see or imagine.
Not yet liberated by many dimensions
That liberated Tennyson to understand
That more is achieved by dreaming without limits.

Tennyson said…
That more things are achieved by prayer
Than this world dreams of,
But what are dreams?
Visions of hope, or the darkness of damnation?
But can we imagine these visions
In many dimensions?
And find new truths which we cannot perceive
In the day to day.

II

Dreams can be suspension
Between what is real and what we hope for,
Or ……
A plunge into an abyss of horrors
The nightmare’s nightcrusher
That reflects the fears of our experience,
The fears of Fuseli’s nights
Of grotesque creatures that taunt the hopes
Of our tomorrows
By revealing the layers of yesterday’s experience,
A past that haunts the future
In the day to day.

Yet redeemed by intentions
For the good,
And honourable to the nature of humankind,
And lifekind with which we share organic ancestry.

Dreams release the mind to find another place,
Another dimension, where what happens
Can happen and more than we can suppose
According to Haldane.

Limitless possibilities that dreamtimes
Expose what we do not own
But instead we are a part of.
Land, sea and air fused with the spirit
Of peoples that inhabit distant shores
Where they are one with the place
Where they are, were and will be
For all time.
The dreamtime of Australia’s
Original peoples.

And so the plump apple
Becomes a part of the experience
Of those who live in two dimensions,
Carl’s flatlanders experience their
Dreamtime of first causes
Because the missing dimension disallows
Their understanding of what is real.

So conflate the idea to many dimensions
And you can see what I mean.
Imagine the unimaginable
That cannot be seen
Because of the constraints of three dimensions.

And do not forget time
Perhaps the portal for imagining
What cannot be experienced
In spacetime warped and curved
By the embrace of gravity.

We sail in this cosmic sea
Not seeing its possibilities
Because we are not equipped
To see through a glass darkly
Or so Corinthians says
But to half see, dimly see
Love
And the truth of black holes
Where physics is sundered
Perhaps allowing passage to other creations
To us mere visions of what we aspire to be
And understand
Just as Blake saw heaven in a wild flower.

III

To perceive the possibility of many dimensions
Is to free the mind
From superstition
From the prejudices
That blight the landscape of our thinking,
And the landscape of dreams
When we perceive self
As if disembodied
Floating on the ceiling looking down
Detachedly on what we do
And what others do in the day to day.

Doings driven by the limited framework
Of width, breadth and height.
Width and breadth and height
And do not forget the passage of time
In which our doings take place.

One is singular in mind and body
Meaning self in the day to day.
To be beside oneself is joy and anger
The Janus faced self
Somewhat like the masks of comedy and tragedy
But of emotion and not theatrical circumstance.

How many multiples of
Space and time
Are needed to be beside oneself
In a quantum universe?
Or universes where to touch would be
Annihilation of self
Tracked as energy pure, and as simple
As the dreams of our disembodied self
Looking down from the ceiling.

IV

Is hope the delusion of optimism,
Dreams its manifestation of unreality?
Who can say because analysis
Is limited within the context of our perception.
Perception influenced by prejudice and misunderstanding
Because we are limited by what
Can be understood
In three dimensions,
And do not forget time
And gravity
And the failure of its resolution with dimension
and time
Limiting understanding.



But……
If we acknowledge the limitations
Even if not understanding the quantum context
Then, given we are prepared to accept the
uncertainty
Described by Heisenberg,
Then we are mentally equipped
To understand that truth is provisional
But with verity according to experience
Accumulated through the continuity of history.

We try to resolve contradictions
Because resolution anchors us into
the certainty of
Our present experience,
And certainty is comfort, allowing us to live
Day to day.

David Applin, May 2013

Copyright David Applin 2015

Watch the watchmaker make and watch
my slow, clumsy feet.
They, the feet of another, it seems,
are trying too hard. Slow down.
Screams not heard by deaf ears made
in vain. Try again later.
See the seemaker make and see
or don’t. It’s not time for
that says my slow, clumsy heart.
Blink once.
And see.
Make and see.

Acknowledge my smile, return it,
Yet love is still deferred by the glass planes
Of your ribs, guarding your heart from my greedy hands.

Like a serpent’s tongue my own seeks its home,
Behind my lips that belong against yours,
That taste of fruit from the garden of Eden.

I cannot help that glutton plagues me
Of the lust and love of your throbbing pulse,
Satiate my wanton needs and my aching veins.

Desperately, I cried, like the watchmaker,
Whose palpitations become erratic when he hath no business,
And when he cannot fix something so simple as the cadence of his own heart.

It seems to me that even the most artfully
sculpted facsimile of that designed by nature
could never compare to the beauty of the
recognizably finite and fragile.

It would be the most grave of all crimes
to correct the brush strokes of the most
grand artist, that ancient blind
watchmaker whose work is all around us.

Who is the watch to say he isn't designed
as he should be? Those with cogs misplaced
are just as beautiful and unique as those whose
finish shines with the most brilliant luster.

take rain from sky
take the way tall men straighten your stance
take the students of dance
see the little ballerina stretch her toes
see her mother warm with the floodlight

take your plea to the judiciary
take your eye to the statue of David
smear on the dust of Somalia
rub raw the frost of Croatia
refresh your aim in the heights of Angola
but do not stop only at this

breathe every impediment
trust every promise of clemency
stumble if you will
fall under cease-fire
take it all

take the watchmaker
bent over time
with fine tools
clasp each second

take the sculptor who
chisels and scalpels for the grandiose

later in your armchair
fold creases in your newspaper with care

be with every nourishment
be with the cloth of your nakedness
make sail for your harbour of origin

remember the milk of your mothe?r
warm or cold or sweet if it is so
appease hunger
with the ambidextrous mouth
of a soldier
fed with death in his jungle

be the bystander, be the bi-partisan,
the *******, the timeless,
the dancer
be it all

breathe each increment
do it now
measure the infinite
the possible


MChallis © 2015

the cold had caused much restlessness
within our people's heart
the vengeful hand guiding their hate
would tear our lives apart.

the sun was setting on our reign
and night was closing in
worried visions peirced our sleep
and burrowed deep within.

the verdent hues of spring were near
but just beyond our reach
for on the ides they took us too
a land of snowy beasts

so there we stayed until the sun
rose dizzyingly high
and when the ****** snows did melt,
they brought us back to die

Imprisoned in a gilded cage
with summer drawing near
the revolutionists appraoched
injecting us with fear

we had our frozen dew drops royal
stitched around our waists
a final effort to release
our family from this fate

then when the moon was high at night
when evil things do crawl
they took us down below the house
lined up against a wall

their bullets pierced our fathers heart
murdered our brother too
and diamond corsets failed to stop
royal blood from running blue

it poured out over all the ground
the watchmaker had won
the royal lineage was dead
our priviledged lives undone

the vessels we had once possessed
endured the desecration
of acid baths and deep mine shafts
and burning mutilation

and so about two weeks inside
the seventh month, july
the last of russia's royalty
would bid their lives goodbye.

Stone me on your Altar of Lies.
I am not scattered light upon the stair!
You're all stuffed mouths and hollow eyes,
Spun from whole cloth but left bare.

The ****** never stirred, but only watched me leave.
Where's the Watchmaker for his Meek?
Tell me, where's the freedom in your Mustard Seed?
How can this be the Love we're meant to seek?

I am no Lamb!
I won't have your Love!
I couldn't give a ****,
and you, sir, are no Dove!

All seen equal, except those You exclude.
Let's not tout the best of us?!
I can see the cunning, you are shrewd.
But that still just leaves the rest of us.

'Cause what're we but broken people?
Empty lives and Original Sin!
Gird your *****! Guard your Steeple!
This is a club I won't belong in.

*Don't you preach to me
with ***** ******* hands
Holy love and His truancy.
You issue His commands.

be careful my friend
the clockwork inside is yet to be complete
cogs remain still
but they will soon beat
and then you'll see
why i believe
this to be
my masterpiece

Lover and lover,
Going to sleep.
Both dreamed of peace,
One dream achieved it.
One counted time,
The other drowned in lemon juice.
One dream found war,
The other built castles.
Both woke up,
Neither knew.

Lover and lover,
Going to travel,
Both went to Antioch,
Neither were happy.
One dreamed of Spain,
The other of lilacs.
One dreamed of ******,
The other of balloons.
One traveled lightly,
The other was untended.
One saw paradise,
The other lost their eyes.
But still neither saw.

Lover and lover,
daydreaming,
One longed for poetry,
The other for seduction.
One desired reverie,
The other was solely cavalier.
One dreamed of excusing themselves from the booth,
The other welcomed the operating table.
The surgery never happened.

Lover and lover,
Laying down for rest.
One thinks of killing Stalin,
The other calls from a phone booth to warn him.
One takes a trip through the minds of the gods,
The other hikes the Appalachian.
One desires to **** all evil,
The other wishes to turn it into goodness.
One saw carnivals,
The other saw forests.
One saw dirt,
The other greeted a Frenchman.
One made tea for the poor,
The other recorded a folk album.
One planted a flower in a shoe,
The other visited Greece.
One visited a watchmaker,
The other cast lots for clothes.
One put out a cigarette on the ground,
The other buys sunglasses on the street.
One sailed into Norway,
The other read from the bible.
Lover and lover: Alone in a cage.

Something's broken and I can't quite put my finger on it
It was running fine for such a long time
I didn't drop it, I swear!

A flywheel must have jammed somewhere
One of the cogs out of place
The gears that meshed now just grind
And the **** thing won't wind
Or rewind
I didn't drop it I swear...

But the Watchmaker knows what He's doing
Something's broken and I can't put my fingers to it
But His hands know their work
We were made for more than to tick the hours of the day

Something's cracked and I can't hold the piece in place
Every time I try another one falls off in its stead
All packed in the same cardboard box
Heading off to the same place
It's dark and we *****
We feel around long enough to see not a single one undamaged
We all know where we're headed

And the pieces held perfect by Hands we cannot see give us hope.

Fear of it all,
Not knowing when to fall,
Working so hard for far too long,
To have it all go wrong,

Fear of alpha,
We Made scenes,
My ******* is biblical,  

I was flung from the clouds,
For clapping louder than thunder,
He casted us out,
For tugging at his crown,
Because we challenged a throne,
That failed to fold,

Here and now,
Hand selected or arrested whatever’s suggested,
As long as there’s a mic,
I’ll take the stand,
And play witness,

Groping the book oh so popular with hotel nightstands,
And before your bailiff,
I’ll promise my honesty,
Give you false hope, in my sense of loyalty,

Fearing you all
You believe I love to fib,
That’s what you teach your kids,
So do you see the guilt gushing beneath my skin?

Witness to havoc,
The day we set Heaven ablaze,
In the name of Adam,
I promise your honor,
We fought for the liberation of Eve,

But that isn’t what Father preached,

Hand in the prosecutors,
With another on the switch, guess who the defendant is,
Decadence is looking for a conviction,  

The anti-Christ’s came before the Vatican,
He’s of your genetics,

It’s inconsiderate,
You even preached providence,
It’s inconvenient,
To find out your scriptures of full of ****,

Fear of it all,
I was on the sidelines,
And Casted out,

Knowing too much for sainthood,
I tinkered with the watchmaker’s minutes, and was flung from the clouds,

Envious of humans,
But opposed to walls in Eden,
I’ll caress scripture with my finger tips,
I’ll recited your rites of pagans,
And pander to a judge, jury, and all the slaughtered lambs,

He tossed us out,
For tugging at his crown, and falling out of line,

Just a sheep counted before sleep,
But we woke up,  
When we assaulted the Angelic Order,
For fear of it all,

From incubation to graduations,
You’ve been suffocated,
Socially lacerated,
Incapacitated,
By a genre of gimmicks
Governmental deliverance,
Poisoned pulpits of pretenses,
Symbiotically capable of lethally extorting martyrdoms
I watched him rip that rib
  
Fear of you all pulling the plug on me,

I’ve worked so hard for far too long,
To let you lower my corpse,
Beneath entitled toes,

Never finding unity,
Only your sensual weakness for a delusional *******,
Detrimental martyrdoms,
I challenged a throne that refused to fold,

Fear of Alpha,
He casted me out,
To where the brimstone never burns out,  

Foaming at the brainstem,
Unhinged with a taste for their *******,
Fear of you all,
Those that surrendered to bliss,

Now you get my fear of it all,
The day I set heaven ablaze was my ultimately reckoning,
Ignorant because being different required intelligence,
Only now do I see,
Only fools challenge divinity,

A keg stand takes three dipshits,
I challenged Alpha.
Of Beelzebub’s breed,
Falling out of line,
Feeling Gabriel’s heel,
Teacher’s pet had me by the throat.

The Secret That THEY Don’t Want You to Know

The secret that your banker, car dealer
Doctor, insurance agent, mechanic
Dentist, electrician, wireless service
Neighborhood Russian spy, travel agent

Hairdresser, ophthalmologist, plumber
Lawyer, barber, grocer, parole officer
Pharmacist, barista, pedicurist
Watchmaker, stockbroker, cable installer

Or county agricultural agent
Doesn’t want you to know:
                                                   wait…what was it…?

the song remains the same

short
frantic
fast

thirty seconds of
aggression and
distortion and
******* punk

radio pop follows a formula
where experiment is anathema
and the flavor is bland vanilla
even lines of simple rhymes
gently fragrant cadences
for inane entertainment

unlike crooning ballads that
meander through soundscapes
pondering existential enigmas
in time with rhythm and blues
the banjo strings accompanying a
shadow on horseback riding on towards
a sunset setting the world asunder

we are all concertos
symphonies of solemn symmetry
a myriad of harmonies acquiescing
to the meaningless tunes of the universe
whipped hither and yon by the whims of
chance and happenstance in this
tumultuous hurricane of existence

some songs have not yet reached their conclusion
one began the moment the galaxies were painted
in broad-strokes across a tapestry of vacant space
still more have lost a beat they can't repeat and remain  
forever frozen in anthologies kept in some ancient
library in an extra-dimensional plane
presided over by Father Time
a blind watchmaker created by the words that
sprung forth from cracked and withered pages
containing endless evanescent anthems

The line between technology and fashion is blurring. Brands and designers are now using electronics to make cutting-edge wearables and experiences, while companies like Amazon are trying to break into a space that hasn't until now been very welcoming of outsiders. Intel is another tech company that's set its sights on the fashion world, with various smart garments and accessories, including dresses, glasses and bracelets. In an interview at SXSW, Intel Vice President of Wearables Sandra Lopez said her team's mission is to be an enabler first and foremost rather than trying to become a fashion brand unto itself.

Lopez pointed to last year's New York Fashion Week, when Intel teamed up with 13 designers to livestream a runway show in virtual reality -- a medium that's being embraced by many fashion houses. Another example, she said, is Tag Heuer's Connected Modular 45 smartwatch, which Intel helped build with Google and the Swiss watchmaker. "Our strategy is focused on collaboration and empowering leaders in the fashion industry to push the boundaries of fashion with technology," Lopez said. "We are constantly working to make our technology smaller, faster, more energy efficient and more capable than ever before to help our partners succeed."

One of the challenges for brands is figuring out how to make the most out of technology, she said, especially in terms of the data they're collecting through connected garments, other types of wearables and at their retail stores. "There is a real opportunity to help the fashion industry harness the power of data," Lopez said. "How can you analyze what consumers are doing in store, online and through every interaction you have in real time to maximize sales and open up new revenue streams?" That's something designers like Rebecca Minkoff are already trying to do with in-store features like smart mirrors, self-checkout and RFID tags that let the brand know more about customers' buying habits.

"Personalization and customization is only beginning to be tapped into," Lopez said about the potential of both industries working together on wearable products. "Technology has the ability to transform industries, and fashion is no different."Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses

No longer the measure mechanic,
the setting lever and loosening coil.
The need for fingers, precise,
laying thin metals, tweezed gears
and spring engineered
in the knowledge of frictions, is gone
and towered hands are still.

What once was built entropic,
cuffed about the wrists of us,
this clutch wheel of grace and holding
ring, this yoke and winding stem -
mere baubles to the collector.

For now the hours are true decay,
half-lived and radiant,
taut with the drip of what is
and what must be known.
And that bent clockman,
hunched and relic,
stern in his craft, compelling
WIND WIND WIND,
fashions jewelry for peddlers,
but not I.

Name falls from the ancient Greeks.
The Sound of Thunder,
Is what they preach.
I like to think of you as a classical human being.
Your mother and father welcomed you here on earth February the 4th 1998,
A water bearer,
Ruler of Uranus and Saturn.
You’re unique,
Built in Texas and fell right in the Chi.

You know what people like about you?
The communication you bring.
You communicate with your eyes,
Ears,
And mouth.
You know what else?
Your humor.
All the unsynchronized clocks in a watchmaker’s shop stops.
Your smile.
It relinquishes the fear in people.
Makes us feel safe.

You idolize the melodies of Mr. Kendrick and Cole,
You’re picky in your own nature.
Can’t have chocolate Oreos without milk,
Doesn’t dare touch greens.
You’re the element of air,
A handsome Phrygian youth.
Nobody is as witty as you,
Clever and rebellious.
Like spicy chili Doritos your mind is as far as the eyes can see.
You’re beyond on what you know,
Ahead of the game.
Filled with paradoxes.
You’re interested in the opposite ends of the spectrum.

If you were to leave town the next morning
Save me your lucky Krispy Kream sweater.
It smells like…you.
I want to hold your hand as you voyage all over the world.
You’ve been to Egypt before,
Go again… with me this time.

To my panda,
You will go out of your way to help another.
Live with no strings attached.
Like Po,
Very unconventional and always full of excitement.


You truly do have you and your beautiful soul.

this room is full of clocks,
and i’m learning how to be lonely
against your body.
even if you aren’t here now,
i can imagine that one day,
you were.

how beautiful it would have been
to see you silhouetted against time itself,
the ticking of the universe
in time with your heartbeat
laying waste to cliché
and just loving each other.

i still have not learned how to be lonely,
only how to write about it,
scratching the ink-crust
before it dries.
the walls here are pinned
down in eternity
with drawings and sketches
of how the world looks without me.

but the clocks still carry on,
or most of them, at least.
the grandest of them,
ornate and finite,
have stopped, displaying
meaningless times that i pretend
have significance,
like the most beautiful doomsday
showing when i die.

and when it does happen,
perhaps you will be in this room.
perhaps the ghosts
i am imagining
are merely remnants of a parallel world,
in which you are here,
and in which i do not have to confront
a possibility that loneliness will be forever.