Written

 one billionth of one billionth of a second to tell it

all. the first collisions of particles, waves

too small to be solid, the splashes of ripples

containing the Universe’s plasmatic fury held the blueprints

 

for each and every night sky. like a game

of marbles for the destiny of everything – all existence at this point

no bigger than the lint in the pocket of a speck of dust – we

were scattered: aminos, cells, tadpoles, apes, shot across time

 

and space. the massacres, the battlefields swampy with the rotten

secretions of countless soldiers, and the starving masses

ubiquitous with our greed were painted into the laws

of physics like a prophecy drawn in blood on the walls

 

of a cave. that first blind and brilliant flash projected

your birth, love, successes, failures, and death

into the cold void like a film on a tepid, pale screen. in the rush

 

of energy, yet unbound from time, all thoughts, perceptions,

dreams, fantasies, artworks, fictions, and delusion

existed, real as a stone in the palm of your hand.

 

it was a dirge, the bang, a tragic chorus

foretelling and celebrating how it will end,

when the smallest particles, once more nothing

but waves cutting through the fabric faster

than space can form around them and reality

goes silent. and since

 

the first cause, nothing has changed.

nothing has changed. nothing can change. nothing.

it was all already written.

***

(Cuenca, Ecuador -- October, 2021)

Follow me down this rabbit hole for a moment. Whether or not we know all of the laws of physics, most people would agree that there's a set of principles that all matter, energy, time, etc. follow, including the movement of electrons in the synapses of our neurons which are correlated (NOTE that I am not advocating for a causal relationship, but a strict correlation) to mental activity. By that logic, from the moment of the very first "cause" which is the Big Bang for the purposes of this poem, everything has been set out on an unchangeable track. In my opinion, this doesn't paint a pretty picture for the prospect of free will, but who cares? Free will is overrated anyways.