Timelines

by Siri Paulson

I am increasingly convinced

that we are living in the wrong timeline

the one the time traveler is supposed to come back and fix

she was supposed to win

he was meant to live

we should have learned our lesson

from the pandemic that almost was

from that time we all messed up,

or the other time, or the other one

but she has taken a wrong turn in the multiverse

he is fighting the pterodactyls

stuck in the far future with the giant crabs

intubated in some locked-down ward

the portal dark and idle

the time machine hidden and locked up tight

waiting for the one with the knowledge

who will never come to release it

from its long and lonely wait

or maybe they know not to come here

maybe these are the years they always skip

in their tours through the past

maybe this is how things have to be

if we want the shiny future

we were promised long ago

maybe we’re waiting

for a rescue that will never come

there’s no-one but us

to mend the timeline

to put things right

one butterfly at a time

we are all time travelers

one second per second, one way only

one day we’ll live in the future

how it looks is up to us