I Don’t

There are clocks

everywhere

and they tick in my house

on my oven

in my brain

and they tell me that

all I’m doing is getting old

hoping that things will

emerge

and ascend from this mess

and this rain

and

everything will be new again.

He asked me once if I thought I was in a movie

because I sat on the pavement

in the middle of the night

outside the big houses

and because I do things like

walk into the rain to scream

and I laughed but I should have said

no

that’s the problem

I don’t.

Noah Silliman

Ascend