Marionettes

Such a strange affair,
between here and there—
it seems I am going nowhere.
No matter how I move ahead,
there bends back to here instead.
It stays always just “out there,”
never closer, never near.
For everywhere I go,
it’s still named here.

As though dimensions are the marionettes
of the three musketeers
while our awareness
pulls the strings—the lonely puppeteer.

And yet, no matter where we go,
we never outgrow
the endless "me and you."
This separation—
a wound no thread could sew,
no glue could bind anew.
No matter how we walk,
me and you,
here and there,
we’re a pair of shoes
unfit to wear—
always walking, going nowhere.

A question whirls within my ear,
an echo, a susurration I rehear:
When over there
dissolves in where I stand, in here,
why do distances never go anywhere and disappear?
Why, no matter how I fill this glass,
does it still empty and turn clear?

Why can we never truly pass,
no matter how slow or fast,
through the throat of this hourglass?
For on the treadmill of this impasse,
emptiness waits
to pull me back—
again, again,
to regress,
to lack.