Time: 1
Us: 0

Will it always be like this?

Swinging our racquets at Einstein's illusion.
Singing, singing, singing 'Stop
the World I Wanna Get Off
With You'
when nobody hears
over the relentless tick-tocks.
As
     as
the clock's hands
push
         push
pull us together,
apart.

Hey, you.
Are we lovers or are we opponents?
Let's look at the scoreboard.

Time: 1
Us: 0

In school, they taught us perseverance.
So we keep
dancing, dancing, dancing
                                              around
the hands of the clock.
I'm on number 3 and
you face me.
What's it like on number 9?
What's it like to be on the edge of
the next hour,
the next day,
the next big thing?
You're on number 9, I'm on number 3.
I face you, you face me.
Are we lovers or are we opponents?
I face you,
                   you face me.

So easy for us to...
So easy for us to love, but
so easy for us to leave.
So easy to fight, to
wrap our hands
                            around
each other's throats
simultaneously.
So easy to embrace, so
easy to walk away
when you are the west and I am the east.

I'll ask you again:
Are we lovers or are we opponents?
Eyes flit up to the scoreboard,
even though
                      we don't want to look
away from each other.

Time: 1
Us: 0

The ball is in no one's court anymore.
No more back and forth,
stichomythia, repartee.
Nor round and
                           round
when it's all an illusion,
isn't it?

Don't look.
Don't bring it up.

Time: 1        
Us: 0

The figures are getting bolder, louder
than the ticking.
Tell me, tell me, before
you move to 10
and our angles get skew,
tripping over the clock's hands,
because we forgot the steps of
our dance.
Tell me, tell me, what it's like
when you see me
all the way from number 9
while I'm on number 3.

The scoreboard's screeching
like a train ready to leave.

Time: 1
Us: 0

The audience is already beginning to clap.
They have loved us
and so have we.
We put on quite the show,
enough to rival Djokovic or Murray.
But neither of us will walk out with gold.
Not when we've lost to an abstraction
that can swallow us into
memories.
We get silver medals.
Around our necks, choking
but we clasp them tightly
so they can sparkle on our chests.
My silver beams to you,
                                           your silver beams to me.
On and off,
a Morse code speech.
When we can't speak,
                                       can't breathe,
that seems to suffice.

Here is a case of beautiful irony:
How did we meet?
Your eyes
                 saw in
my eyes
               that silver gleam.
My eyes
               saw in
your eyes
                 the very same thing.
Remember:
I face you, you face me.
Are we lovers or are we opponents?

The scoreboard screams:

Time: 1
Us: 0

I bought a watch today, why
did I do that?
I'm so smart but
I'm so stupid.
I face you, you face me.
It's not an illusion, is it?
Look at me.
Is it?

Time: 1
Us: 0

We're finished.
But then how could we have ever won
when neither of us knew how to play tennis?

We look at each other
so the scoreboard can dissolve
instead of us.
Like your eyes
                          in my eyes
a tethering glance,
could hold us in an eternal position.
Like a single look
could sustain us
stationary.
I face you, you
                          start to leave.

It doesn't matter now.
Everything's spilling out
on the loudspeaker.
(And for once, you don't wish to seek this one truth.)

Time: 1
Us: 0

It will always be like this.

Time: one.
Us: love.