Climb through the window.

Time slips from its spine of minutes and months.

What have I found?

Uninvited, but you left it open.

Did you hope someone in your future

would find you in the past?

The still air stirs.

Dust illuminates from

light behind the screen.

Walls of pages,

ink spilled, ink dried,

reach past the decade

and pull me back now.

And I’m dismayed to see,

you are more alive in this room

with the skins of ghosts you’ve shed,

than in the world we live in now.

Grow up, they said,

get a real job, they said.

Cool the blood that sears

through your veins.

And you did.

If I could step through the years to find you,

walking through the dead grass of your small town,

with your pockets empty but your head full of future,

I would.

I’d stop you in your tracks and tell you — 

I see you as you were

I see you as you are

and I see you as you will be.

I’d look you in your eyes,

graze my lips from the indent of your temple

to the metal in your brow,

show you a glimpse of the language we’d make.

You will find me,

just as I have found you.

Another era, just without a mausoleum

like the one I’ve wandered into here.

Envision, please,

the way you envelop me.