The Entropic Arrow of Time

Tore the cord
from a core
that I swore
was the center of me.
Released the energy,
severed expectancy,
stepped out for the world to see.
Silenced the echo,
let go,
underbelly soft and yellow.
Holding steady is a myth wrapped in a cloak of control.
Say hello
to the new me.

All the space and the stillness spread wide like a vacuum expanding.
Even in peace
the pieces
don’t keep
they just shift where they’re landing.
Order is a moment I’m holding,
not owning,
reliably inconsistent,
folding the edges to make me look whole
from a distance.

The direction of time
by design
slides
into chaos by nature.
No matter the climb,
it declines,
by and by,
against the clock racing.
Fire exact
and it acts
like it’s stable.
But that’s just the angle.
Zoom in as it’s moving,
the ruin
is woven in every arrangement.

Rewired the system,
fixed it,
then slipped into different constraints.
Shifted position,
conditions
the same in a different restraint.
Swapped tether for tension,
possession
dressed in a different suit.
Same dissolute
impute
of this unapologetically relentless pursuit.

Break one equation,
another one waits
in the wings of the brain.
Pivot fixation,
the function remains
in the shape of the pain.
Sitting in stillness,
but still
in the stillness
it’s lurking again.
Filling the void
with a noise
that destroys
what I fight to sustain.

Braced
to face
what’s designed to degrade,
outrunning time and the pace
that defines the game,
Stay calm and listen
to the current I’m in.
The arrow never misses,
it just finds somewhere else to begin.

— Tami Jo Urban