I Read An Old Poem. It Opened A Door

Paint kisses poetry

I am reading backwards through time
I trace old posts with my finger,
each word a small rebellion
against the order of things.

The notes unfold themselves beneath my gaze,
impatient. I am watching myself
become younger with every paragraph,
every comma a doorway I forgot I opened.

I find you in the comments
where someone wrote yes in lowercase,
where the date stamps make perfect sense.
I am unlearning what I thought I knew.

The post tells me I was wrong
about endings, about beginnings,
about the space between notifications

My eyes move like water finding truth.
I am following a trail left in text
that changes as I read it,
each note rewriting the next.

You are the question I keep asking.
I am the answer that keeps shifting.
The old words know this game
they have been playing it since before I arrived.

I reach the first post, the oldest note,
and find my name already there,
signed at the bottom. I understand now:
I wrote this tomorrow. I am reading what I haven't lived yet

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Finally understood I am the conductor
of my own life, and will be even after I die.
I, like the trees, will decide what I become:

Andrea Gibson, 1975–2025

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homage to Andrea , whose words taught us that poetry is time travel, that vulnerability is strength, and that every line we write today becomes a door someone will open tomorrow.