Reversed.

Sometimes I really regret being here.
Right here--
right now.
My notions have only become insubstantial,
and I perceive from the superficial.
My ground is tenuous. I can barely feel it.
I clench on to this surviving vestige,
which has somehow, remained.
I never expected.

But it's pointless.
I can't stop the grains of its sand from slipping through,
the slits between my fingers.
Tightened grasps only leave unwanted imprints,
Ingrained onto raw skin.
And it kind of stings.
And so I can't hold on for long.

Is this a cost or just a sour benefit?
The fine line that used to separate so distinctively,
this
from that,
Is blurred.
I can't see.
At least I used to.

Yet still I can't help but think: What if things were reversed?
It needs to be reversed, reciprocated, recalled, rewritten.
Or unwritten.
But it can't.
Or I can't, because
I can only rest.
Right here--
right now.

This is not to abase, but to merely
extirpate,
all thoughts of what it could have been.

- A.L.Ternative, November 30th, 2007