I fight with my clock
it’s faceplate staring right passed my pupils phasing through defense mechanisms resembling the thick walls of area 51
my mind is the U.S. government and what I see as my mind is the U.S. population
I feel like I know who I am, what I think, what I feel, but I’ve been keeping that from myself.

my clock is slow about 5 or 6 years
I look at it every now and then asking what I should be drawing on the inner walls of this cell I live in
actually it’s more like a self-constructed bubble ±2 seconds from the present with a radius of five feet from wherever I am
the sarcastic second hand stares into a person even I don’t acknowledge while the minute and hour hand try to talk to him

It’s the same conversation every single time
I complain that they need to pick up the slack because I’m relying on them to refresh my mind on what’s going on

They call bullshit

My “what do you mean” facial expression was met with the hour hand telling me I’m the one that’s slow about 5-6 years

That my first love has disappeared for some time now; my clock has been counting the time lapsed at the top of its lungs but I’ve had ear plugs in the whole time…
as I write, poem after poem after poem as if by sheer will I could reverse times gears to that seemingly normal summer evening when I spoke to my first love for the last time.