Time: A Sensory Poem

Time, I hear it in the chirpy birds, see it in the bright light that escaped the curtains and feel it dissolving in the morning tea.

Ticking, my feet while I gulp the toast and denial pills to run over to the impending list of things waiting for me.

Time, I tick it off in the to-do list, the communications sent and received.

Ringing, my phone’s on silent but I listen to the hustle in my head and not let my mind be deceived.

Time, I touch it in my watery eyes, feel it in the tension down the spine and hear it in the grumbling stomach.

Fighting, the hunger to keep the dream alive and I’m fighting to be in the present to move to the future with some luck.

The most intractable of our experiences is the experience of Time - the intuition of duration, combined with the thought of perpetual perishing.

- Aldous Huxley, 2002

Time, I note it down in my priorities, read it in my word counts and play it in the lo-fi beats stuck to my ears.

Running, I’m lost for breath, burning out, but I don’t stop cause I’m not at the finish line and that line is being dragged further every year.

Time, I see it in the microwave timer I put, the recipes I cook and the night shift mode that comes on my phone.

Switching off, I turn the dim lights on, let out a sigh of breath but I can’t switch off the light I see at the end of the tunnel and be gone.

Time, it is everywhere yet nowhere to be seen.

I have a watch but I only tell the time lost and the days I’m projecting myself in.

I don’t stop, neither does time snooze.

The present seems ahead of me and we are in a race which I can’t lose.

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Cover Art by Kshitija Gurav, 2023