The Thief
I lay in the dark,
like I do every night,
counting shadows on my wall.
As I wait for numbing sleep
to overtake me,
the window to my chamber
creaks open.
Having heard the many rumours
of a destructive prowler
that lurks around at night,
I am suddely filled
with dread and expectation.
I quickly slide under my bed
and hold my breath.
Dressed in black ,
a mere shadow in the night,
Time creeps into this room.
It tip toes across the shiny floor
I worked so hard to keep clean
leaving evidence of its being here
with sloppy muddy tracks.
I watch helplesslessly
as it opens up my safe
with just the lightest tap,
grabbing all the precious shiny gold
I was saving for tomorrow.
It throws my life work
thoughtlessly
into a sack that makes
all valuable ,
hard earned things
disappear.
I wince
as it rummages
through my drawers,
closets and trinket boxes,
through my life's collections,
knocking down,
turning over,
destroying,
without any regard
for the property and privacy
I marked as "mine".
It takes all that once
may have made others envious
or at least allowed
me to blend into the world
and
leaves behind
the mismatched,
misfit,
tattered and worn,
now permanently marked
with its grubby finger prints.
I watch without hope
as I am stripped
of all I thought was "me",
while its accompliss,
on the wall behind me,
ticks a song
I am all too familiar with.
Time shuffles past
slowly,
deliberately
ready to leave with its stash.
My heart beats so quickly.
I want it to go before I am discovered here.
As if hearing my thought,
this thief of youth and permamence ,
turns toward my hiding place and
for the briefest second ....
stops!
The muddy toes point in my direction.
I gulp in the air that is suddenly so stale
and try to slither back and away
to no avail.
Time bends down and lifts the bed skirt,
peering in at me with sightless eyes
that peak out around the holes of its mask,
sending shivers down my spine.
It shakes its head and whispers
in a tone of a superior being
who need not explain anything,
"You can't get away from me."
Before I can scream in protest,
it reaches in and pulls me from
my comfort zone.
I fight but
my fists strike at nothing.
There is nothing solid
I can push away.
Dragging me into the light
it punishes me for my resistance,
whipping creases into my flesh
and
stripping the remaining threads
of self respect
from my paralyzed body
with no more than its breath.
When it is done with me,
stuffing all the remaints of
youth and beauty,
I once wore as protection
into its bottomless bag,
it discards what is left of "me"
as if I were no-thing.
I watch from my muddied floor
as the crinimal,
this ghostly shadow,
carrying all the solid things I clung to
over its shoulder,
sneaks back out of the same window
it came in
and is gone.
I would cry out for help,
yell for the powers that be to go after
this cruel thief,
to capture and imprison it
for all the crimes that it committed.
But I know,
despite the evidence
left behind,
Time will always be an elusive,
shadowy figure
no one can catch or hold on to.
So I lay where I am
and breathe
waiting for the light of day
to shine down on this dark destruction,
time has left behind.
A light emerges
gradually,
slowly,
faintly
around me,
a soft light.
It does not hide what Time has done
but somehow it soothes the pain.
I see through its gentle golden hues
that all that was taken
was meaningless
and somehow in the way.
I look down at my now naked self
and see the perfection
in this marked imperfection,
the wisdom in this constantly
changing insecurity
as this light
gradually,
slowly,
faintly expands.
The light,
I realize then,
is not coming from
the open window
Time has crept through.
It is coming from my fading form.
If it were not for Time's
break and entering
into my wispy,
falsely solid and secure little world,
I would still be laying in the dark,
counting the shadows on my wall.
© Dale-Lyn September, 2021
Inspired by something I heard Eckhart Tolle saying today
Time is something that is ultimately going to destroy you but it is a criminal you can never catch.
All is well!
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