Suppose I lived
on a piece of paper.
My life would unroll as a scroll.
No ups or downs
no elation or depression
as I move from point to point.
I lower myself
into two-dimensions
to banish restless dreams,
loneliness,
the arthritis of growing old.
Time does not exist here.
I will never age or die.
On this page I find relief.
Stuck in a time warp,
I meet up with General Anthony Wayne.
He warns me
to follow the straight and narrow
and not fall off the edge
into the Slough of Despond
and Despair.
I wander
in the illusion
of a quiet Valley Forge.
Waynesborough is the flat little town I crawl on.
Mt. Misery and Mt. Joy,
sets of topographical squiggles.
The wagons along the Schuylkill
rumble along
from Washington’s Headquarters to Sullivan’s Bridge.
I walk along the hilly Chapel Trail,
unable to descend or ascend.
The geese honk as specks on the river
unable to take off or land.
At five-feet seven inches,
I am now a dot
in virtual space.
My seventy-two years arise
where two intersecting 3-D spaces
bring my time into being.
But 3 dimensions never pop up here.
Which means my so-called lifetime
is part of a grand illusion.
I want my life back!
I will embrace my painful illusion!
I need your truthful intrusion!
To leap back off this scroll,
I invite you to join me
here on this page
and fight the lies in our lives.
Shrink yourself
to two dimensions.
Trudging through the frozen fields of Valley Forge,
you will gain three degrees of strength.
If enough of us dots pile up,
we can break through
to the third-dimension
and witness the truth
in the time
we have brought into being.
Suppose you lived
on a piece of paper
and your life unrolled as a scroll.