somewhere between the strangers who turn into us,
and the strangers we inevitably become -
are the lives we occupy briefly
and imagine to be the whole of ourselves.

these transient identities.
these dust motes on anarchic tumble-tide trajectories.
these momentary illusions coalesced
from the quantum cause and ripple effect of all history,
ready to evanesce at the slightest shift
in neurochemistry or universal whimsy.

it seems i can no longer find time to define time...
and meaning... and underlying form...
and all those other things that occupied my mind so completely.
is life distracting me from the thoughts
or were the thoughts distracting me from life?
am i better off where i am or where i was?

was i a better stranger once?
will i be a better stranger hence?
am i at least half as far from who i was,
than from who i want to become?
can these things be measured
with any accuracy or meaning?

i know i cannot know for sure -
but it somehow pleases me
that i'm still the kind of person
who'll ask a purely poetic question.
if only to beg poetic answers.