Sleepwalk

 Sleepwalk

Up ahead, a figure walking.

Looks like me - same glasses, clothes, hair - only a bit older.

Striding the same path I always take.

I walk faster, try to catch him. He stays just out of reach.

Is he my Future? Seems to be robotically repeating a familiar phrase...

“If only I had done it differently...If only I had done it differently…

If only I had done it differently…”

And who is that guy, seems a younger version of me, stalking from behind?

Uneasy, I walk faster, but still I hear him grumbling, gaining on me.

It’s a denizen of a Past that catches up to me too often, now ranting this refrain... 

“If only I could do it differently…If only I could do it differently…

If only I could do it differently…”

I startle awake, alone, the phantasms fade.

I get their lesson for me:

“You can learn from us, not hang with us, we’re stuck in time.

Leave the past in the dust, and the future in the fog.

Be here now, that’s where and when you make things happen.”

So goodbye, Past!

Hold on, Future!

Here comes The Present!