Temporarily Permanent

1.
I wrote something today
even though
I had nothing to say
there is too much music here
too many people who say
what I want to say
better than I ever could.

So I find myself
sucked into the information age
and suddenly time means something.
Once upon a time
I had read every book
available to me
but now,
I could never do that.

Once (or twice) there
I went a whole day
without ever looking at a clock.
Time
is just a word there
but here
it is what they (we?) live by.

2.
Someone asked me,
yesterday,
the one question
none of us can answer –
“Where are you from?”
And I wanted to say
“nowhere” or
“everywhere” or
“God” or
“Africa” or 
any number of other things
but suddenly 
I didn’t have the energy 
to explain
again
so I said
“Pennsylvania.”
After all, 
I know people there.
It is as good a place
as any other
for me to pick.

But really,
who I am now
is only a fleeting identity.
Maybe tomorrow
I will be someone else –
speak another language and
claim another place as my hometown,
or maybe I won’t.

But for now, for today,
this is who I am
and what I am
for those who ask me that
(such a stupid question. I am a
person, of course!)
And here I stand
temporarily permanent.

By Bluedarkness

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