you were a clock always ticking and
the beat of your heart a metronome
you were a bomb and
i did not know when you might burst.
you were combustible
an incendiary grenade
and i was the gasoline
to your wildfires.

you were at war with the world
your mind a battleground
and i cried when you asked me
whether i wondered if life was worth living
perhaps because
i myself did not know

when i went to bed at three in the morning
i still woke up in the middle of the night
i dreamt my heart had burst open, ripped at its seams
still beating faster than death could seize our time on this earth
i asked you why it was that
life is this way

you were an hourglass
trying make to time stand still.
and while i went to every corner of the world
to buy each and every clock that existed,
still, i did not know how to stop it for you.
i did not know how to save a life
when i could not live my own
correctly.

you were a ticking time bomb,
ready to explode;
and i could not clip the wires
of your mind.