The time trilogy:
1. The past will always stay around to haunt us
1a. Yesterday was the past.
A monster we cannot move.
But maybe we can cage it,
Or befriend it.
1b. The past is in the past,
And now that time has past,
We can move past,
The past that tries to
Keep us locked
in the past.
1c. Don’t try to run from the past.
It has legs and it can move.
It will run alongside you,
knocking over tables and chairs,
Dictating your future days on past decisions
without allowing you to control any of the present.
2. Flash forward to present day
2a. Is it really possible to live in the present?
I often feel that the past is ever present
in my day to day life.
The sidewalks determine my steps,
With cracks that no one can pinpoint
the day they happened,
But someday long past they became.
The trees grow to give us shade
from yesteryear’s saplings,
giving us respite from the sun right now,
Today.
The meadowlarks haunt the air
and sing of days past
when they were but warm little eggs
inside the woven little architectures
of twigs and fuzz in the canopies.
But all I seem to recall of my previous days
was failure, and an inhibited sense of dread
that my own history would forever
hold me back
and refuse to set me free.
2b. Each present day I try to keep track
of deadlines and ideas,
creative lightnings
snaking across my consciousness
in but a brief mere moment.
I enjoy my time at present walking.
Delving into the lurid concrete jungle
where each step,
every second changes the topography
and the social climate of where I happen to be.
I find myself currently with one foot in front of the other,
losing the number of paths I tread
and hoping if I can lose myself,
and lose time herself,
remaining stuck, stagnant, frozen
to the pressures of then, now, and later.
My mornings now mostly consist of sleep
And my insomniatic nights,
when creativity is not viable,
are filled with obsessions
about the sordid relationship I hold with the past,
and the terrorizing agony of fear
that I will disappoint the future.
3. Sometime in the not-so distant future.
3a. How far into the future until we will fully love ourselves?
(Asking for a friend...)
3b. “The future is unclear” said the crystal ball to the lady on
the other side of the table. But that didn’t work for me. I need to
know how this will turn out, and this fortune-telling hack and
pack of dusty cards will not stop me.
3c. Sometimes we all worry about the future, but worry doesn’t
change the coming days.
3d. A holy fire burns everything,
In a few days...
Or years...
Or decades...
No one knows which generation will feel its purging heat, or
how much of God’s Green Earth it will eradicate, we can only
hope in today, the present.
2c. But what if the present robs us and steals from us the preparation that only the wisdom of yesterday offers?
1d. The past deserves to be left in yesterday.
Trust me.
Because the future is looming.
3e. But the future is uncertain in all certain terms.
Today is yesterday’s future, and tomorrow will be the dreams of today.
And the future is now.
Timothy Arliss OBrien is an interdisciplinary artist in music composition, writing, and visual arts. His goal is to connect people to accessible new music that showcases virtuosic abilities without losing touch of authentic emotions. He has premiered music with The Astoria Music Festival, Cascadia Composers, Sound of Late’s 48 hour Composition Competition and ENAensemble’s Serial Opera Project. He also wants to produce writing that connects the reader to themselves in a way that promotes wonder and self realization. He has published several novels (Dear God I’m a Faggot, They), several cartomancy decks for divination (The Gazing Ball Tarot, The Graffiti Oracle, and The Ink Sketch Lenormand), and has written for Look Up Records (Seattle), Our Bible App, and Deep Overstock: The Bookseller’s Journal. He has also combined his passion for poetry with his love of publishing and curates the podcast The Poet Heroic and he also hosts the new music podcast Composers Breathing. He also showcases his psychedelic makeup skills as the phenomenal drag queen Tabitha Acidz.
Check out more of his writing, and his full discography at his website: www.timothyarlissobrien.com.