an incongruence;

variations on reality and perception.

the hands of time, the hands that held you

when you fed at your mother's breast;

they are, in essence, the same. they have

both changed, both grown worn and faded,

more impressions now than skin and bone,

and silver paint, and fairy-tale stone.

yet what held true before is still true:

the hands of time sway onward, as

the hands that grew tired grew softer

as well. as the mist kissing the window

presses closer, breathes so deeply,

what is inside yearns to be outside —

the girl within seeks the girl without.

not an incongruence, then, merely

a story that was not told in full: things

occur not at once, but in folds,

overlapping and intertwining and

making fools of the tellers, the believers,

you and i, and who we sing to, these

wretched faces, tragedies in shearling coats,

slipping mist beneath their sleeves, and

caressing it away. you see, then,

don't you? there is no difference, no change.

time is only a space, a steadily expanding distance

between what was and what is, rendering

an impossibility for what was to be what is, and

an unerring inevitability that

what is will be what was. so you see:

this is a lie. these words are self-aware,

more so even than you —

you are not aware,

for if you were aware, you would know

not to read on; it is all lies from here and back.

the only truth is that the true truths

never lie. and yet, here i am, and

i have given you none.