Tick Tock II

Dispatch

The clock does not bring
one request at a time.

It brings them all.

The work waiting
with its deadlines and promises.
The family waiting
with its needs, its laughter,
its ordinary moments
that will not come back
in the same form.

The body asking for rest
while ambition asks for more.
The future asking to be built
while the present asks
not to be abandoned.

Each one speaks
with the voice of necessity.

Each one says:
Choose me.
Choose me now.

//

Overflow

There are lists inside lists.

Messages unanswered.
Calls that deserve returning.
Work that cannot wait.
Work that has already waited
too long.

A goal set years ago
still tapping at the glass.
A promise made at breakfast.
A room that needs attention.
A person who needs presence.
A thought that needs quiet
before it disappears.

Nothing is unimportant
when everything matters.

That is the trap.

Not that there is no time,
but that time is asked
to become more
than it is.

//

Completion

The day becomes
a board covered in pieces
that do not fit together.

Move one forward,
and another falls behind.

Finish the work,
miss the moment.

Stay for the moment,
watch the work accumulate.

Rest,
and hear the old accusation
that rest is wasted ground.

Push harder,
and find that the body
was not built
to be treated
like an endless machine.

Every choice creates
an unfinished thing
somewhere else.

//

Triage

Maybe adulthood is not
learning how to finish everything.

Maybe it is learning
that completion
is not always available.

Maybe it is standing
in the middle of competing fires
and deciding
which one needs water,
which one can wait,
which one was never yours
to carry in the first place.

The clock still knocks.

Tick tock.
Wake up.
You are running late.

But the answer has changed.

Not every door must open.
Not every demand
deserves entry.

Some things will remain undone
because another thing
was chosen to be lived.

And perhaps that is not failure.

Perhaps that is the only way
to make time mean something.