the alarm clock
in my childhood bedroom
has always been
fast by a minute or 2

every month or so i
realign the last digit
with Apple's universal truth

and every month it
slips
out of sync
again

it must be off by such a small fraction
of a second
i tried to calculate it once
0.00001 some-odd something
one brick so minimally out of place
causing the gradual collapse of a skyscraper

i havent found the energy lately
to practice this ritual
and today

my old clock
is fast by 3 minutes
neon green bars flickering silently
marching on
announcing fates to the unwilling and
making
rash judgements

there was nothing i planned to do
with those 3 minutes
and i knew it was
justified in its conviction

but i
realigned the last digit
and watched for 3 minutes
the green flickering rhythmically against
the black screen
climbing minute by minute
finalizing again
my execution