You slunk in
with your time,
those thin little hands
like black gloves circling
the inside of a clock.
Each passing minute
is a breath,
a short relief as you realize
forever is an illusion.
Everything in life,
everything,
can be measured,
extracted,
subtracted from the whole
and ticked up to
the tocking of a clock.
You stole a glance
like a thief in a diamond mine,
quick,
cautious,
ever aware of pressing pressures
above and below.
You feel the infinite multitudes
of hairless hands and arms
pushing down on you,
black.
slowly springing and bouncing,
back a bit then forward more
until they crush your ideal
under their mathematical impressions;
forever is an illusion.
And when you
can feel each moment
of your life slipping away
to scatter in the winds
of a storm
slow to start
but fast once awoken,
when you realize
the passing brevity
of dandelion seeds hanging in the
heady summer air,
the satisfying
slow
crunch
of brown and hellfire leaves
below your feet,
the porous nature
of our mind
often forgotten,
hands will reach from every time
every place
every space pushing down on you
as pills vainly dull it
crushing and
mushing you into
a pulp of a human being,
idealism plucked from you
in ripest flavor.

You thought you could live forever,
but forever is an illusion.