(I Wish I Could) Stay A Little While Longer

I always wanted more time
To watch the street performers and mimes,
But mom and dad would
Take my hand and drag
Me further down the street-
We had people to meet.

The human clock- the recession of a nation,
The wasted days and the restless nights;
The lack of focus feeding on the momentum of a pendulum,
Diffusing the minutes through its spindly fingers with no right,
Using my time to fabricate years of its own.
Gears grinding in a grandfather frame like the collision of my heart and ribs standing before my mimes,
Like knuckles gripping face paste that’s washing away, and
Pale white and bold stretched hands (of a clock ticking away my years)
I had this interminable dream that one day I’d stay long enough to hear the mimes speak-
(I haven’t the slightest idea what they’d say)
This non-sequential, romantic notion of a perpetual collusion being proven fallacious over time
My erratic heart used to scream, It could happen, dear, it could,
But I’ve no longer got any time
To stay and listen for
My quiet mimes.