The portal you left behind is now my gravity.
In the slow, spiralling vortex
where every second splinters
in infinite fractals, reality refracts
through each individual action:
the grip on the gearstick,
the revving of the engine.
Timelines tangle as necklaces:
spinning wheels beneath a snowed-in moon
butterfly-ripples digital subspace to reactivate
a middle school gym class changeroom;
blankets shielding my shame woven of the same
smoke-swirling gold dress that bares your breast.
You say we meet in the wrong one, where I’m not ready yet.
The other me in periphery slips through memory
as a finger sliding between
pollen-filled petals to open the bloom,
sticky pixie-dust tracing unfailingly
the ribbons and bouquets of stigma.
No axis drawn for the rapists and robbers
who reverse electrical impulses,
erase equidistance to girlhood.
You say to pay them no mind too,
that all painful presents add up to a perfect future.
Even in nonlinear existence, I keep wishing
my graph collapsed into this indiscrete space sooner.
Unravelled to threads and engine supercharged,
I’ll search through all of time to find the line
where we intersect.
