i started crying because
i thought too short and too long
about the relentless passage of time

tears like an incessant saline 
drip 
drip 
drip
into the Salton Sea
as we marvel at life's toxicity

samsara, an endless cycle 
of birth and of death
spinning us dizzy into tomorrow
and the next and the next and 

i learned it’s impossible to unwind,
the spiraling illusion of the Twilight Zone
we exist between lightness and dark

time swallows everything with a beating core
the only thing eternal is its vacuum-like inhale
i watched my father’s face change from day to night

still i realize again and again and again
it’s really better that there’s no forever.
how could you ever love something that long?

age is the mold that creeps below the damp
it grows and grows and grows 
and we are dying and dying
and then we are dead