by Shreya Pendurkar

Today we trailed in groups,
calling out names of people we knew; begging shamelessly,
convincing them: to stretch the rubber-time,
until it could wait or slow its pace for us to grow a little sane and normal again.
Until there was some balance in the nasty lives of us,
so we could keep ready to face a life, unjust.

The clock was sulky, bittersweet; her arms: frozen, green and a weary pink.
I almost fainted thinking about the years below my feet; I almost shrunk thinking about the
years above my skull: slipping... mocking me with evil grins.

The time slips, almost like a sand:
smooth, rough, solid; yet utterly fragile, but flip.
The shadows of yesterday are null and exotic; brutal and bruised.
The shadows of tomorrow are exquisite, inexplicable and still,
but narrow-eyed and dizzy; unclear and placid.

Tomorrow holds an unjust magnetism-
it is a soggy, warm, burnished film full of dullness and fainted mist- unclear as a foggy
scenery.
Although it creeps up in the minds' eye and turns smiles into worries.
The drenching outcome of tomorrow is never plenty, yet unassembled and tricky.

Today, we stand wounded in the awful construction of time,
and beg the unknown for staying a little longer-
to let us not fumble or fail in its rush of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years.
Hardly believing in the fact,
that those creepy 'ticks-and-tocks'
would not pay heed to our vain,
and slip faster as we'd trail insane...