It first visited me many years ago,
When I was only a girl.
I didn’t know then what it meant,
Or by what name to call it.

It made me feel as though all the world
Were distant from my thoughts.
Alone in my room where I would turn
I dove in to the feeling of loss.

As though I were waiting for someone far,
As though I’d forgotten my purpose,
I’d sit on the bed, apart from the world,
And wait to understand what I’d crossed.

I offered some names, to see if they fit:
Loneliness, memory, abstraction—
But nothing I said disturbed that distraction
That kept me alone and apart.

It comes to me now,
Some twenty years later—
Now and often between.

It still takes me away from the moment,
All that I’ve heard and seen.
As though gazing across the pages,
My eyes connect with selves that have been—

Looking from the past forward to now,
In questioning misapprehension,
Unable to find a reason to feel
That either time could matter

But watching it surely pass by.