Musings of a dumb bitch

Clock

Time passes you by...
Slowly and all at once as vivid as the shining amber lights on the wet concrete at night.
Walking on that burnt orange stone, home, home.
I look to the past and it's forgotten.
I'm standing outside in the driving rain, it ushers me away.
Pressed up to the window panes, fogging up sodden glass.
Looking at a stranger's past.
That little room with its sandy paint and coffee curtains.
Lights snapped on and Nora Jones sings out of the stereo.
It's soft and milky.
Clouding and brewing softly.
Time.
Past is present and present is future.
And it's all already passed me by.

I flip through shining photos and those familiar faces smile at the ghosts behind the long, lost cameras.
Choppy hair and sharply slit winds softened by a flash decades ago.
Moments so dear, a sun so golden, people lost to ticking clocks, they forgot long ago.
And they kept it all down.
Those shining cards with their little people.
The faces you see in the warm ripples of a bath.
No malice, just ghosts.
Ghosts of happy days and burnt orange stones.
Do you remember their names?
Did they ever learn mine?

I walk and I know I'm already gone.
Just a face in a photo.
I stand faded in smooth cards on Christmases and birthday nights in orange lights.
Smiling and laughing.
Running on tiles, on wood, on carpet, sand and stone.
I stand young and small.
I doubt I could even tell you why these photos exist now.
But they did.
Those people breathed that long lost air and time thawed once the flash faded.
We carry on.
Until the next photo's taken.