the heavy ticking of a clock I can’t find
in a room I’ve never slept in before
echoing the sounds of the clock in my grandmother’s living room
a room I haven’t been in in over ten years
she doesn’t live there anymore
and the clock doesn’t work
but in the purity of the night time
I hear the ticking back and forth
and something heavy wraps its arms around me
the empty nothingness of being loved and far from home
my grandmother is asleep somewhere miles and miles away
maybe dreaming about me and maybe not
but as the seconds go by
weighed down by a nostalgic finality
I think maybe she is dreaming of me
and of the clock in her living room from ten years ago
if I think hard enough
or maybe soft enough
I am still in that room
still a child with a white carpet beneath my toes
and the chilly air from the porch brushing along my arms
I am a little girl counting the seconds
tracing the edges of photographs that live forever in a corner of my memory
light and warm
waiting for dinner
I am far from home
in a room I’ve never slept in
but as sleep starts to pull me under
I realize the thickness of the air surrounding me is not the tolling of an ending
but a beginning
a blissful, peaceful recognition of a past well-lived, and a future well-imagined
2/2/24 11:14pm
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