You Were Never Really Here
The eyes often grow heavy
The shoulder blades hurt
Remember those days when an hour turned into another and then another?
These days are those days
All of these days are those days
You are always here
Yet, however, you are not
Only an existence, a consciousness
Floating around
While everything passes you by
Air passes you by, while you float in it, still
And you get up, dress up, show up
You talk about Waiting for Godot
How's the carrot, Vladimir asks Estragon
It's a carrot
You fathom theory of relativity in exam halls
When time slows down for you
And gets faster and faster for them
And countless pens keep dropping
You mull over a Wittgenstein quote
Out of context, out of place
In a manner of speaking, objects are colourless
What does that even mean?
You have never really read Wittgenstein
But you plan on reading him
And so many others
Someday
So many people to read, so little time, you think
Looking at your watch
Looking around
Eternity ticks away
[The title of the poem was borrowed from Lynne Ramsay's 2017 film of the same name.]
Anika Shah is a bilingual writer and translator. She is currently a Lecturer at the Department of English and Humanities, ULAB.
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