TIME
IS A PENDULUM
After spending so many seconds by someone
else’s side, I woke up and I said, “I wasted my time on you.”
The journey back to
you is paved in passed seconds marked by the pendulum of time which sways back
and forth until one’s satisfied. The concrete, torn and tattered, trips me as I
step. My metaphoric cane clings and tings cross the broken floor— only broken
from treacherous trembles of tears and fears.
The air bares an uneven heaviness to the bottom of my
soul’s sole for my whole life has been a mistake. I don’t know where I am, but
I comb ahead, anyway. Even though it’s silent in the great grey aura, I hear
you beckoning, calling constantly from the corner. You’re playing the
prettiest, on the keys and strings, all at the same time. I can’t see you, yet,
but you’re singing me a sweet song and it’s lulling me forward. I stumble on
the street, and I look to you to pick me up.
The
sun is slowly moving in a backwards fashion. Your voice is sounding stronger,
also. The subdued vibrations are more vibrant as I’m invited ahead. You’re
singing the song now that we sang, so long ago in my speeding car around slight
curves and heavy hills.
Blood
leaks out of my skin like a spout spraying into the sky. I see a dim glimmer
from my son’s sun. The shine seemed to shed light on the rights of my actions,
but the blood washed the right away. As I stand, I leave my stick on the
cement.
I know I am closer to you and youth. There are flowers
now, and green trees. They are growing and coloring the corridor of time in the
most flattering way. Your strokes are even more beautiful now and faster,
elegant. Every note pressed plays a role in colors. Every coat painted relays
my soul’s chakras, alternating pink, purples, golds, rosemaries then primaries.
And suddenly the cracked cement separates and gives way for the supple soil
underneath.
I touch without trying. You’re speeding up with one hand
and slowing down with another. I grasp at the ground and hold it in my hands.
Moving it between my fingers, It wistfully winds up back where I found it. I found a catastrophic caterpillar and it
matured right before my emerald eyes. With flying force, it fluttered in the
future like a natural follower of time.
But you keep me pushing into the past so you can say
something that you never said. We were what we were, but I never knew that I would
notice the way you noticed me when it was too late. I should have seen the
sightless signs and stopped and turned to take your hand and hold it as tightly
as time would tolerate. But at the time, I took his.
The trees tell me secrets—the ones you never told me
while you were lying in my bed. They whisper as they rustle. They grow taller,
and I am nothing compared. I gaze with my head agape, upward. I am noticing now
the bird’s nest and the bird’s worms as the birds, they chirp, “meet him under
the waterfall of that night and stay. Stay, stay one second more.”
The still squirrels are smiling still as I step slowly to
beat. I stop to smell the ever-changing roses and close my eyes and I am back
to you already. The trees are turning to tropics as I tremble in the past. We serenely screamed
the song as we aimlessly drove through the airless summer night. I was singing
for him. Were you singing for me? It all makes sense now.
My
eyes open on their own and all that was obscure and whimsical before is more
concrete, but in a whole new way. My body feels strong as I inch back to you,
not like the cold, callous cement of my future. The muting melodies are senselessly
slipping away from my ears and all I hear is silence.
The
shower begins to sprinkle its tears through the leaves of the trees. I cup my
hands to see if I can catch them. They puddle and splash in slow motion in the
pit of my palm. I wonder if you can see me now. I wonder if you can see how
I’ve changed as I wander.
There
you are again, singing.
The
rain runs relentless through the depths of my mind. I hear you call my name and
the forest peels away. I try to find you in the roaring wake that drips from
the world as we know it. The birds, they told me. They told me that you’d be
here.
There
you are in the far distance emerging from a water-wall cave, looking like
you’ve been sleep for three days. The water falls at your side and you glide
towards me. Your fingertips meet the pouring partition and as you strum, my
thoughts liquefy. Time has kept you safe, locked away. The olive of your skin
contrasts against the cumbersome, cool colors of blue and grey around you. I
exhale a gasp and in the lapse of time, the length of your locks of hair blew
softly in my breath.
You
approach me, smiling silently. Everyone else lives in the shade and fades next
to you. I feel your palm’s embers embracing my skin as you sweep the swirls
from my eye lashes. You lean in and ever so lovely we meet. Your lips linger
next to mine. They taste like honey-glazed nectar and it takes me back.
***
After spending so many seconds by one
another’s side, you wake up and you say, “I wasted my time on you.”
