Lillie OTime Stops for No Man

Time Stops For No Man

Lillie Oliver, 2021

I like to think that my heart is a clock, That every beat is a tick, every other a tock.

Time stops for no man, so how does it seem As though I’m suspended in a timeless dream?

Caught in a place where time has no boundaries Nothing to remind us of our dreadful mortality In a pocket of minutes that exist only for you and me Together, as if nothing else in the world could ever matter Because isn’t that what love is?

Time stops for no man, and I give no complaint For with the passage of time comes the patience of a Saint.

But clocks can be broken, their gears can wear down To a point where all that can be heard is the incessant whine and grind Of gears that no longer fit because of the consistent strain Of a machine that continues to somehow work Even though it is slowly falling apart.

Time stops for no man, so why then for me Would anything be quicker when I wish it to be?

My heart does no favors, spares me no pain For there’s no off switch, no batteries to remove In a way that would allow me to still breathe as I wish And feel only what I wish to feel and no more, For that’s the curse of the heart, isn’t it? The very thing that keeps us alive

Is often the very thing that makes us feel dead. But if time stops for no man, why then for you Should my clock simply cease to tick out a tune?

Untitled Lillie Oliver, 2021