It’s Too Tense

We live in the past tense,
always looking back over our shoulder
to see where we've been before.
So much wanting,
needing,
to remember better days
when life overflowed with joy.
The trouble is we cannot go back,
can only look through windows of memory,
which sometimes sparkle
and other times cloud with murky sadness.

They tell us to live in the moment,
enjoy the present,
as it's all we're guaranteed.
But these days the present tense
sets my nerves on edge.
It's not a happy place;
the world seems to have voided
the guarantee.

They tell me to look to the future
for brighter skies and kinder days.
And I wonder, 
is the future only pretense?
Something imagined,
filled with affectations and false claims?
Are we all deceived,
by whatever invisible force
directs our actions?
Or is this the cosmic joke
between a wigwam and a tepee,
and we are all 
too tense?

~Elise Skidmore ©2025

Thanks for joining my journey through Poetry Month.