Instructions for Building Your First Time Machine

Don’t. The past is overcrowded with the future 

closer than you think. You blink, that’s one 

eon; a yawn, two. Take a few photographs—

one of your mother, some of your childhood, 

one of the most embarrassing fashion mistakes 

you made in your twenties—stack them up, 

shuffle, deal. Fixate on some thoughtless crack 

you made at that party, years ago. You will live

to make another. You will live again. Try reflecting 

a mirror to another mirror—watch yourself 

replicate endlessly. Try breaking. Paste those 

shards onto a globe; now you’ve made a disco 

ball—change! Step one: forget everything;

step two: forget step one. Step one-two-three: 

if you’re just dancing here that’s good enough; 

when the music stops, stay where you are—

you’re older now than you ever imagined;

you remember wanting to forget. You didn’t. 

Keep walking away from the wreckage.