It could slip, in an instant, from your grasp
Because it wasn’t real to begin with,
All those things you thought your worry and
Work had earned: game tokens!
At some point there are no more other people,
There is only the you that you can never see.
You’re not even an extra in your movie like Stan Lee
But a theory, like Duality or Mercy.
There are patterns to investigate, yes,
Where the rules are less concealed:
The same number twice in one day,
Two cars that cut in front of you the same way
Are the guns in act one to be fired in act three.
Aren’t you curious how the story will end?
Or are the decisions of the moment too momentous
To have faith in any conclusion?
Always the past and what it should have been
Acting as if now is finally its time,
And always the pieces that move to the future by themselves
In the only way hindsight can justify.
At last you’re on the path, you say, to vindication,
And can reconcile God with your lot.
But the player of your role doesn’t know you,
Or even realize you exist, much less
Your unshakeable need to have a reason
When there is only sun and wind as evidence of a mind
And the auteur of the film is invisible amid the
Gaffing umbrellas, bust of Abraham Lincoln and such.
These are the things to talk to, to express what you know
In a safe zone, with no hidden cameras
Or script doctors needing to be right,
Where you might be noticed in fact
By surrogates at least, if not the real empressario
Lurking behind your eyes.
