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May 2014
i.** I need you to survive,  I tried to breathe air in the sky, but my lungs only receive it when your eyes fill them up with air. Then, I can breathe again. The functions of my body begin to work, like gears in the clock I used to love (before you told me you hated it, then I forgot all about it). My eyes don’t fill up with water unless you pour buckets from the ocean into them. (my eyes sting but I’ve forgotten the pain, if that is the only way to survive with you by my side). And I cannot eat until your fingernails have broken, by the way you dig into the sand with a beach shovel, because that is the only way you know how to feed me.

ii.I cannot live with you by my side (it is impossible to have you anywhere near). When you help me breathe, my heart stops (but not in a good way, the kind that signals a bomb going off). It’s hard to walk alongside you while my heart wants to beat to the beat of a clock that you despise. That clock used to be the thing keeping me living, but now it is you. You are also the reason I am slowly dying. My mind is starting to fade, so I only remember you and the way you dig in the sand (and even though I hate the beach, I’ve forgotten that too). My fingernails are chipping as I scrape the paint of the wall of my bedroom, to make it beautiful for you to enjoy. I am slowly dying because you, because of the reason that I am surviving. (I’d try to get out, but either way I die, and I’d rather die with you holding my hand then you taking the air away from my lungs).

iii. I do not matter to you at all. I am not the air in your lungs or the force that is slowly killing you. To you, I am just another summer day to enjoy, but forget the next day. You wouldn’t even let me breathe if my best friend did not call everyday to remind you (even fake people care about me more than you ever will.) I cannot live without you though, and you have made sure of that. You have taken away my clock, that beautiful clock that helped me move without pain. You have pushed away all my friends, and my enemies (I shall miss my enemies more though, they were beautiful wars we fought each other at). Perhaps it does not even matter that I mean nothing to you, because I will easily slip out of bed one day to hide in the cracks on the wall, and I doubt that you will even notice.

iv. You told me you didn’t care, so why did you lie? why did you lie through your skin and bones to the edges of my heart, until I had no choice but to climb to the top of the clock. That clock that you took away from me, but I still carried with me even in the ocean (it was the only thing I had besides the memories of you that pushed away even the thought of breathing). “tick tock” you have made this sound a million times, yet you have lied through your teeth that you hated this clock. it’s kind of odd, but I have no time to do anything because your enemies have confronted you, and you are pushed up against the wall. (you told me your enemies were fake, but I know they are real, because they have skin, and a beating heart. they even remember how to breathe sometimes).

v. oh. it all makes sense now. You are the clock. I am the air surrounding you, giving you mystery, and that is why I am still here. That is why you even care enough to listen when they tell you I need to breathe, or to scrap yourself trying to feed me. That is why you have told me you despise the clock, because you are the clock, and you despise yourself most of all. “Tick tock” it’s almost night, and you are afraid of the shadows. Your enemies lurk in the shadows, and you cry in the shadows. You're the clock and you will feed me, but will forget to help me breathe unless you are reminded, because you are busy hiding from the shadows that scare you, and you are busy showing the world when the shadows will appear. I wish I could mean more to you (I wish I could be the hand that strikes every hour) but that will never be, so I will settle with holding your head as you cry in the shadows and tell me how much you despise that clock (we all have our demons and perhaps yours were never visible until I confronted mine).
Avery Greensmith
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Avery Greensmith
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