Outburst in Anticipation of the Infinite Equivalence of Time

Time famines, time droughts, time fetishized.
What we’re really suffering from is repeated loss
Of anticipation created by constant anticipation.
This became clear for many only during quarantines,
When abruptly time seemed not vanishing but vast,
Featureless, a wasteland, a sentence, a suffering
In and of itself. All those suffered withdrawal
From abundant anticipation, that’s all.
What is anhedonia but the loss of capacity
To savor in anticipation? Anticipation
Is a much stronger sensation than satisfaction,
Demonstrably so in neuroimaging, but just
Ask any recovering addict passing a tobacconist,
A pharmacy, a bar. Anticipation, further,
Is itself an addiction, and we murder our hours
To cram them with large and small chunks of it,
Whether mythically middle class, or poor, or rich.
What we can anticipate varies by income,
But anticipation addiction cuts across strata.
Turn your face to a plate-glass window and wait.
In ten minutes you’re likely to question how much
Time has passed, how much more time can you possibly take.
Time should not be put into clean equations.
It always drops out of them, anyway, the runaway.
It’s a mystery for endlessly shifting equivalencies,
Not a balance perfectly rotatable around nothing.
It’s too much and never enough. Is. Isn’t. Wait for it.