time is no arrow

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you cannot tell me that time is an arrow, as i stand taller than my mother, yet shrink in her shadow like it's my first day of school and i am 6 years old. and often i still am, as i transport worms out of gutters and mourn snails squashed on pavements. but sometimes it's 12 am and i'm 7, dissecting dark corners in my room like it's a crime scene and i'm now the investigator searching for ghosts in place of monsters that once made me the victim.

other times it's 6 am and i'm 10, but i'm not stirring from nightmares, i'm slipping out of bed and into them, like shackles instead of slippers. then i'm 14 with secrets that mark me in scratches, in bruises and insecurities, but i mask them with lies and schoolwork
and sweaters and smiles that split my face in half to distract from the pit that is my chest.

suddenly—perhaps finally—i'm 16 in August and every hour is 3 in the afternoon; the hospital bed feels like the precipice and everything that comes after is the descent because time is not linear, it is not the arrow
or the bullet. sometimes it feels like the plunge before the collapse, like forever pointing the gun, but never pulling the trigger, or standing with the bow drawn, but never letting go because you're always pulling back.

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