When we will know everything we are missing out on
It will make us here.
It will drown our appetite for it
& leave us // at last // I think here.
We will see // and be forced to see
there is always a reason
auroras escape us
for when I looked, they were not there
& when I looked away, they appeared.
The News reported early
that what I failed to see in Iceland (despite it being the perfect season)
appeared above me while I was busy
in Missouri.
& why was I busy?
& should I regret?
or can I see that there are always beautiful things
I am not seeing.
& can I see
that what I was busy doing
is just the sort of beautiful thing
no one else will ever see?
For when we finally know everything we have missed out on
we will collapse in noticing
that every argument in our head
every little wish we ever had
& toothpaste drip we saw hit the sink
& hair-brush stuck in our knots
& the thought you had that finally made sense of everything
which you forgot
& the precise experience of hope you had once
which you lost
//no one else, ever, under any circumstance
not through any number of scientific or technological advances
// you can be certain // there is an exactly zero percent chance that anyone else
will ever have them
your experiences
they will miss out
on the kinds of details that would make some photographer weep if she could capture them
the sort that every French film is dying to recreate
the ones the greatest novels make us think about
and suddenly love.
we will all // everyone who isn’t you
will miss out
and each one of us is an entire universe like this
you are the auroras I will never see
the details I would want to know, you cannot recall
but you went through them all
you experienced every single one of them in the most explicit and exacting possible way
in the first person
& I can never have that
And so I continue to exist
living everyday
knowing some seven billion auroras, I must (for all intents and purposes)
ignore.
& in response to this the best thing I find for me to do
is to do what I can
to not ignore mine
and to share what I can of mine
with you
