Stealing Time
2022-04-04

***

The bike path has been sprayed
with meteors, brown and burnished
and leaking to yellow, to naught.
Trees have done their part to furnish
the path
with each and every fallen branch
they could spare. The flags are frayed,
marking the entrance to Dead End Shrine,
sandwiched between two rainy days
and welcoming this stolen time.

This stolen time,
I've come to find,
is the only place where I can live.
Leaving work early,
wings unfurling
to mark a time loop created,
these bike trips where far too long I've left
to not come home covered in muck and sweat
and yet somehow never do,
the severed hours after bedtime
when comes to me all these rhymes,
rest of family long self-sedated.

I don't like this waiting.

I don't like the parting
when comes time for my love to once more return home.
"Please don't go.
Either stay
or take
me with you."

Every natural process of life
that I've ever shied
away from
becomes
less able to terrify
with her at my side.
I've made my peace
with the regular bleed
whether from womb or breast,
the growth of velvet patches
along my hips and chest,
the hot flashes,
the persistent desire
to rip open my seams
and throw my guts to the fire.

But my brain refuses to cooperate with me.
It's stealing time,
stealing memories.
I know that forgetfulness is my domain,
but there's still some recollections
I'd like to remain.

There's still some reflections
I don't recognize.
Stealing someone's body,
looking out through their eyes,
wearing like a coat their spirit, their life.
It makes sense in the moment,
the logic of how their life goes,
but I wake up and I wonder
why
this stranger is so vivid
but not my own exploits in the Outside.

I promised her that when came
the day
for me to give up this vessel and die,
I'd let her climb into my bed with me
instead of kneeling at my bedside.
Emulating that which my mother
did, but trading one body for another.
One last breach out of the womb.
One last parent-induced cry.

And after we leave, I promise you

I'll make up for the stolen time.

***

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
