Clocks

1- When I was little I wandered in the woods behind my house positive that I was safe,

When I was little I played soccer knowing with no doubt in my mind that we would win,

When I was little I was sure that I would grow up to be someone,

Honestly, hindsight is like clockwork,

Rehabs and sex, places you go to reinvent, discover, and love yourself,

For me, this was time and time again like a clock,

2- Tricked into a situation too great for a child,

A mere eighteen and wild,

The bottom bunk was mine,

Not tonight,

As the clock struck 9,

Stumbling, delirious, and drooling we lay him down,

Waking up and looking down,

Through the crack between the mattress and the rail,

Cracker stale he lay there with foam bubbling from his mouth to his hair,

Inner demons surfacing victorious,

Frozen in place clean and sober, my other two roommates take over high out of their minds,

Demons dancing in circles,

Dragging fading life onto the floor,

His last breath as potent as the fatal combination consumed,

An unfixable clock,

3- Out of breath,

Laying on my back post climax,

Wishing there wasn't a clock,

Staring up at a chiseled Swede,

Sweet as can be, but lust at its finest,

He smiles at me then takes a step back clearly dizzy,

I help him take a seat,

He starts nodding out unresponsive,

I look next to him, and zone in on that devilish substance as if there were a spotlight on it,

He had way too much,

I smack his face,

He comes to a little bit,

Then he begins to fade again,

“Stay awake!”

Not on my fucking watch, not this time I convince myself,

“I’ll call the ambulance,”

“Don’t,” he orders,

I only take orders from you in bed,

I hide what we both did, what he sells, what there is way too much of,

I leave what he stupidly also did just to show the cops and EMTs so they’ll trust me,

He’ll get the right help and they’ll take it as the evidence that won't land him in prison,

All the clocks tick,

I hear them all,

It’s so loud that I can even hear the small hand turn,

The ambulance finally arrives as he goes unconscious,

He comes back to and yells angrily at me as he is carted away in good hands, very alive,

I beat the clock,

Full circle,

4- I stare at a clock on the wall like a blind man can feel his hands,

You always move forward like a clock, but like a clock, after one “go-round,” you recognize it,

Something was restored in me from when I was little that has saved my life,

Full circle, the complexities of the inner workings of clocks.