Tinnitus

Behaviors and thinking are never
Half so linear as some think they are,
Nor is the life half so circular.

You think, you behave, you see yourself
In interlocking mazes of Venn,
Circles with overlapping cycles,

But you live from beginning to end,
At least as you’re an organism.
As a you, you never stop spinning—

You’ll never quite see the end of you,
Nor can you remember beginning.
You feel yourself tracing out a line,

And you are, but that isn’t the line
You’re actually tracing. Imagine
An oscillation struck, then dying,

Begun by other oscillations
And setting off still more vibrations.
You’re the air waves around the clappers

Of bells lost in pandemonium,
No idea why everything’s ringing.
Each dies as others are beginning,

But the whole thing’s a muchness of much
Nothing—something set you all going
In cycles but you’ll all stop going.