It’s why we watch a movie twice,
reread a book, walk the same route home.
The familiar calls,
comforts,
and sometimes it hurts.
So easy to default to bad habits;
what goes into our mouths,
what comes out of our mouths.
The choices we make,
who we are,
who we love,
the illusion of control in a random,
uncontrollable world where knowing
what comes next is the biggest illusion of all.
#75
The sleight of mind that palms
truth up a sleeve and
replaces it with hope and horror
and so the illusionist dreams
reality out of anticipation and fear.
Reality, the illusion.
The broken watch’s hands were frozen on its face
Like not to know the time was some kind of disgrace.
I pulled the back off with a knife, and gingerly removed
the hands and face and gears and bits that refused to move.
The gears and bits and face I threw away, they had no claim
upon my sympathy – but the hands – I pitied them their shame.
I put the hands back loose and free to rattle in the case
with a sign that said ‘Time is an Illusion’ for a face.
Now I have two watches, and when I need to make decisions,
one tells me what the time is, the other tells me what it isn’t.
#298
Our lives flow onward
Control is an illusion
There is only now.
#124
Linda Studley 