We sit in the tick between ticks,
between the mechanisms that determine moments,
and the present is a door that was never there,
the past, a stir of feet on stairs, voices once heard,
the future, a mouth forming words we will not hear.

We are driven, and we drive,
through punctuated nows that dissolve
on the tongue like salt,
each awareness a small movement turning
us toward what has already turned away.

So where is it that we are?
Somewhere in the hinge, the fold between
was and will be, Zeitlichkeit:
neither here nor there but moving,
always moving, dwelling in passing,
within the narrow gap that contains us.

 

1/4/2026