Time seems to be nothing more than a number these days.

After Wendy Willis

I.

Answer me this: should I measure my days
in empty coffee mugs and lipstick stained
towels? Papers on the floor and in my hair and
cluttering up in my mind. Too many words and too
little time or space to put them.
I sometimes can’t remember if I reminded you
to call me. I write it down and lose it again.

II.

I think I talk too fast, in fact, I know I do
but I refuse to stop because I have so much
to say, so much I want you to know and not
enough space to use. Don’t bother telling me
to slow down, because I won’t and I’ll just
find someone new to talk at.

III.

The dilemma is whether I want to run
or jog. I don’t like either but I can’t seem
to stop. I also can’t keep up, but the trick is that
I look like I can; people think I am. I run so fast
that I seem to hover above the ground in a
flurry of arms and legs. But that’s what I secretly hope—
that I will stop running and just float instead.

IV.

Said flurry of arms and legs is hard to
keep track of. Sometimes a finger, toe, maybe even
an arm is lost. I notice, eventually, but sometimes
it takes me a few days. When you’re spinning, the
individual pieces of yourself vanish. They are nothing
more than a shadow chasing me down. Only the blurred and
broken images register in my mind. And I’m never
able to slow down long enough to reassemble.
Half-assed stitches and Elmer’s glue are all
I have time for.

V.

Speaking of time, I’ve lost it.
Can you look? The hands on the clock
don’t care much for me.

 

Christa Rohrbach is a Bay Area native attending Willamette University as a creative writing and French double major. Her first book was completed when she was six, but until now her work could only be seen in Willamette publications. Many of her poems are inspired by the daily chaos that is the life of a student in the hopes that this chaos belongs to somebody else as well. Questions or comments about her work should be sent to crohrbac@willamette.edu.