before and after
what surprises me the most about time is that there can be a before and after, and that the space between them can seem like nothing at all— that they can follow each other by a millisecond or less but you are powerless against them, that you can agree without knowing what you’ve agreed to, that there can be no undo button and no merciful forgiveness. that you can be thumbing the pages of books behind the windowsill one second and running out for the bus the next, you can hug somebody on an inhale and they’re gone by the exhale, that you went to sleep with two birthright lungs and woke up a widow unable to breathe. my roommate in geldrop told me about his unruly teenagerhood in iran: he and his friend were speeding on a motorcycle on the highway and out of nowhere a car came and the moment before the collision lasted an entire century. i cannot get the image of him out of my head, flying through the air, frame by frame, time nullified, knowing without processing that nothing could be changed, and it would never be the same ever again.