In high school, I was super into old British poetry. Those old white men really understood my teenage heartbreak, you know?
One of my favorites was “To His Coy Mistress“, which it turns out is about this dude trying to get a girl to sleep with him because one day she’ll be old and dead and why waste her current youth and sexiness?
The poem spoke to my high school (virgin) soul for another reason though. It gave shape to my constant anxiety about living because one day we won’t anymore:
“But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near…”
Yes, at 15.
I guess you could call the poem an ode to living in the moment: “Now let us sport us while we may.”
It feels a little like the world is on hold but time just keeps going. I don’t want to start living again when the world returns and lose all that time. While I may, I’m taking it. This site is my attempt to figure out how to do that while not leaving my house.