Time won't you slow down?
I find myself on the edge of seventeen.
I find myself on the edge of my teens.
I watch perfumed smoke unravel in dance, clinging to my skin, my eyes, my lips.
Candles line my soul with light, incense rinses, pours over my head like a waterfall.
I'm soaked; my hair sticks heavy to the nape of my neck, ink black mascara runs down my face like the watered roots of a tree.
I close my eyes in release, my lips sigh in a watered kiss.
Hallelujah.
18 young, yet tired now, I feel my childhood chasing me.
It's onto me, closing in on me.
So I stop.
My legs burn with ache, they tingle in a cry to break.
And I cry, I resign, I jump, I dive into a sea of hot wax.
"Time can't find me here," I whisper to myself; I'm safe, safe away, molded as solid as the candle beneath my cast.
I laugh in delight to have tricked time itself, frozen in its respite.
But it's not so easily deceived; my childhood doesn't give up so freely, it does not catch fire in a sea of syrup wax.
I watch, as if through a mirror, myself swim towards my hardened reflection.
Molded in a cast as I am, I cannot move, I cannot wriggle free in repulsion.
The girl with golden hair and deep blue sea eyes that reflects the time of day, the sky above, watches me with a growing sadness. Her forehead crinkles in sorrow, a lone beauty mark marks her left cheek as if x-marks-the-spot.
Oh, time won't you slow down?
Her fingers graze my cheek in motherly comfort.
I close my eyes in release, my lips ache to remember those long ago days.
She shrinks before me, 15 now, and a couple inches shorter.
The night is black and heavy, stars nowhere to be seen.
I watch my body curve tensely over my book, tears splashing relentlessly onto pages of notes that I continue to furiously scribble upon.
I look over my shoulder to see my grandpa lying as lifeless as a puppet on a hospital bed. Age lines his face with 76 years of stories of war and love.
A sob rips through my chest and a useless hand rests on my back.
13 and friendless, I run anxiously through paved streets lined with evergreens and children with their melting ice cream cones.
The sun beats its heavy rays upon me, burning my skin as I grip tightly to my first record. Safe in my room, I rock back and forth, sway to and fro, eyes closed, to the Motown notes of 'Stop in the name of love.'
10, blue skies and animal clouds of gone pets race past my eyes as I lay weightless on my back in blue water.
9, 8, 7, 6, my golden hair fades to a white-yellow halo, touching the top of my waist.
At 5, I'm entranced by the pink, purple and bruised sky.
The Arizona desert sticks to my skin, breathes life into my soul.
Cacti, divorce, mountains, responsibility, a distant memory, and a rose to my mother.
Red light, yellow light, green light, go.
I'm in my mothers arms again, spinning in waters of green, a baby light and free--a baby heavy in burdens, sands of time.
On the edge of seventeen, heart is torn and broken. Strong and sturdy. Thick and shielded, I watch love go.
I stretch in pain. I rinse in stress.
But in the depths of the sea of wax, sea blue eyes, I see a composition reveling in those war-like tears, Motown notes, racing clouds and emerald cacti beneath the bruised Arizona sky.
Smoke spirals around me, filling my heart with smoke.
And the days go by, like a strand in the wind, like a white-winged dove in flight, and me on the edge of seventeen.
My mirror takes my hand, squeezing in a child's innocent comfort.
"Time won't you slow down?" she asks.
18 and old.
"Time where are you now?" I cry.
Time where are you now?
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