Again! The clock ticks ceaselessly. Night and day--
it wakes me in the night, tears me from my pillow,
crying What is this sound? What is this presence?
It is always there.

Its neatly rhythmed ticks tell me I am wasting
my life. Again! Why must it be so neatly measured?
I could live in peace if it would only skip a
second, or an hour, or a hundred years.

I can only see so far, and it troubles me. The clock
will tick on when I am dead. I am not worthy
of its attention. Tell it to be quiet! I want to go
to bed!

Oh god, someday I’ll be dead. “No use fussing about it,”
my father once said. The clock’s eye looks keen in this light.
How frightening it is, the clock reminds me. How frightening
it is to live.