Grandfather Clock

Tick, tock

Rewind the clock.

I’m standing in my living room

Looking out the window

Waiting for the guests–they’re coming soon

Feeling the familiar pang

Of fear before they all arrive

I don’t feel comfortable in my own

Skin. I guess I’ll just survive

•

Fast-forward

Maybe twenty years

I’m crawling out from underneath

A darkness I couldn’t foresee

A long, slow night that cut my teeth

Now, up at dawn, my body strong

I feel a glint of something new–

My mind skips backward to that day

I clocked out for an hour or two

•

Thump. Thump. Off in my head.

Streamers. Laughter. Little kids

I should be young, and having fun

Instead, I feel outdone, undid

Older than my seven years

The day they’re here to celebrate–

I don’t feel like a little kid.

This can’t be my real birthday date

•

But maybe I’m not old at all.

Maybe it was never me

In the corner, young, forlorn, I spy

The clock face watching me

He sees who I have always been

And also who I’ll one day be

Grandfather Clock has seen it all.

He understands the likes of me

•

The body is just like a clock.

Our tissue has a memory

It records what we forget

It takes its stock of all, you see:

Feelings that we couldn’t feel

Experiences cast out to sea

Until a new song comes along–

A rhythm that can set us free

•

Tick, tock.

Reset the clock

Time stands still, and starts anew

Twenty-seven years have passed

Twenty since I was in that room

Prepare the streamers and the cake.

The guests will be arriving soon

I’m finally free of all the fear

I’ve held since I was in the womb