split-second glimpses
I hope I’ve done enough
to tip the scales
in the direction of change
I hope it was enough
to be poised
and composed in
that moment,
to exude a sort of confidence
reminiscent of the person
I remember being…
I know it was enough
for me to sleep soundly at night
and I know it was rough
to go through a year such as this
but I’ve planted some seeds
and maybe now one will grow
maybe now I can start
to see signs of a different future,
split-second glimpses of scenes
exuding light and joy and warmth
because all we need is that lift,
a view of these patterns in reverse,
all I need is some love
and this belief will continue to grow,
this faith in myself
and all the potential that remains,
it’s not too late to accomplish
something exceedingly great
it’s never too late to find meaning
in a thing once abandoned
and I can’t wait to be reeling
with desire
for each and every second
yet to come
like horses roaming free
but still chasing the idea of home…
this fall may be lost
but we can still ascend
Garbage Notes:
I wrote this one after I had an interview for a job last fall that I thought I wanted. It was for a position that I imagined would really have set things right for me at that time. It was an opportunity that could have changed the course of what was a really challenging year.
It had been a while since I’d gone on a major interview, and I was nervous, which is natural. But still, I felt like I was out of practice. And my confidence wasn’t exactly at the highest that it could have been.
The first few lines of the poem exude feelings of hope. In my heart, I felt I had done my best. I hoped my best was enough.
My performance was good. I prepared for days ahead of time. I practiced. I did my research. And I was in the right state of mind going into it. I left nothing on the table.
On this particular occasion, though, I didn’t get the job. In fact they ended up totally ghosting me. They made things seem really promising, and even after I followed up numerous times, I never actually got a concrete response. No indication of results in the affirmative or the negative. No feedback and nothing to go on. And I was devastated.
To not get an answer at this weird time in my life was even worse than getting a flat-out rejection. And it was hard for me to accept alternative paths towards the future I was looking for. But in time, I recovered. I applied to other jobs. And I ended up getting a good position that worked for me just a few months later.
Whatever—those people missed out, I guess. And most likely it was for the best. If they’re the kind of folks who would just not follow up and leave a great candidate hanging like that, then they’re most definitely not the kind of employers I would have wanted to work for.
And finally, to give some insight into the title as well as one of the key lines of the poem—the phrase ‘split-second glimpses’ is a riff on a lyric by The National in their song New Order T-Shirt.
The meaning of my poem doesn’t really have much to do with the song, but I liked the phrase, particularly in the way it captures the fleeting glimpses that we get of scenes in our mind of things that used to be or of visions that have not yet transpired.
For instance, I had these split-second glimpses of what my life might be like if I had gotten this job. They were merely hypothetical, and they were hazy and fleeting. But that’s what it’s like to get your hopes up about something. You imagine in that vague sort of way all the possibilities that might come about if you were to go down a particular road.
I supposed the fleeting glimpses can apply to memories of the past, of people who are no longer with you, or of lives you no longer live. These split-second glimpses reflect our consciousness being stuck forever in the present time. Perception always failing to capture the true reality of continuous existence.
It’s possible that all moments and all potential trajectories of reality are happening simultaneously. And when you try to see into all these alternate realities, all you get are these mysterious, amorphous flashes of something, snap-shots that always feel about as fantastical as they do real.
Franco Amati 2024
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Glimpses, but also feelings. Or glimpses of feelings. Like a wire making a connection for a split second and, during that split second, you have a fleeting experience of a memory from the past you wish you could recover, or one from a future you wish you could have. It’s too short and fractional to know which of these it is. Or if it’s something else. It’s that flash you only ever see with the corner of your eye that disappears when you try to look at it. Or a sound that is gone when you turn your head to hear it. A brief gap that appears, or seems to appear, in the black curtain. Did I see something just then? Did I feel something? Was that a knock at the door? Did someone just call my name? It's not that there’s nothing there, it's just imagination I lack.
I cannot begin to express how much I identify with everything here. Split-second glimpses, indeed.