I had thought I lacked for time
and spent my days frantic,
as though life were a web
and death a looming spider, his
approach inexorable, his mouth
large enough to swallow whole
my ambitions.

I had thought I lacked for time
and arose each dawn to make up
for yesterday’s failure,
to promise that today I would be perfect;
I bribed the gatekeepers of perfection
with my promises—
“O, let me through!” I begged.
And at night I’d rub my forehead
where the iron had held me back,
the currency of my promises
still glistening like anxious sweat in my hand.

For years I pressed my nose to glass
and watched sun, wind, rain, snow
as they whirled past my stationary self
like a riderless bicycle balanced
by something, someone, I couldn’t see.

I had thought I lacked for time
and raced to outrun the bell
whose ring might rouse me from my dream,
only to at last find I was awake and tired
and still holding coins no deity, no therapist, no poet
would accept—a pauper with a home, a job, a six-figure net worth,
wanting for nothing, suddenly with time to spare,
Unable to afford even a moment of calm self-reflection.

Written Saturday, August 4, 2018