The Hourglass

You threw it once,

hard enough to splinter the glass—

the force of your rage painting fractures

like frantic lightning frozen mid-bolt

marring the clear crystalline surface.

But the sand still fell.

Relentless.

Indifferent to your temper

and your hollow, marrowless threats.

You pressed your thumbs into its gilded framing,

searching for a weakness,

but time laughed quietly against your skin—

knowing it cannot be cajoled,

cannot be bribed,

cannot be broken by the hands of a coward.

You screamed at it.

You begged it.

You promised to change if it would just slow down,

just rewind,

just forget the mistakes you swore you never made.

The hourglass, uninfluenced, kept bleeding seconds.

Kept carving caverns in the desert of your broken promises.

Kept whispering:

"Whatever you lost… you were never brave enough to hold."

Now, you sit in the dust,

splinters in your palms,

the wreckage of your pride around you,

watching it fall—

grain by grain by grain—

One day you might realize:

It was never yours to command.

The sands only listen

to those who brave building castles

from what they would never dare to shatter.