Open Wounds Poem by Daniel Brick

... Since wound there must be.
Robert Browning

You have to be really cautious now.
Any moment can be the Turning of Time:
a sudden shift, a twist in less than
a second and you will lose your balance,
and fall for days and nights, helplessly,
past past events, which like lost souls
stretch out their arms toward you.
The past must be completed, if not
in its own time, then in ours. It is
a layer of skin you cannot shed
the way the immortal snake sheds
its discarded lives one after another.
You are simply a mortal human,
and must carry your pasts with you forever.

Then another shift happens without warning,
and you're falling again, past possible
parallel futures: an infinite number
of them flash before you, some perhaps
derived from yesterday, or even earlier
today, but most dragged up from LIMBO.
They come to a restless rest
in the open wound of this present moment
we occupy. Make your choice, or one will
be made for you. Do not fear this event
you must resolve, for whatever choice
you make will be benign and help
to heal the open wounds of Time.
We are creatures of a perpetual convalescence.