Clock

You want to know what’s going on with me? 

Okay I’ll tell you. But you have to stay quiet until the end. 

I’m going to start off by saying that the earth is dying. And people are starving. And black people are being shot. And wars are beginning and ending. And I’m sad. And I know that this body of mine is possibly insignificant. Another mass in the void. But it’s all that I know. And through all of the horrors I’m still sad about me. And my possibly insignificant life. Isn’t that sad too? 

Growing up is hard. They tell you that but you don’t believe it. 

Until you do. 

There’s a clock that counts down the days until we graduate in the building where I work on campus. It’s red letters ooze out of the black digital screen. 

Each day that number gets smaller. 

I know we are all in the same boat, some of us sinking, some swimming, some just floating along. And I know I’ll get up on that stage in however many days the clock says I have left with you. 

Maybe everything will be all figured out by then?

Probably not. 

They say that our 20s is the time in our lives to be selfish. 

Go out in the world, start a career, go back to school, don’t think about anything except yourself. 

I know how to be selfish. In fact I’m quite good at it. 

But what if being selfish doesn’t feel like applying to an Ivy League doctorate program just to get free tuition, and leaving the person you’ve chosen to love every day for years. 

Every step I take in moving forward with “the dream” comes with the weight of losing you. 

Not to say it isn’t the dream. That I don’t want to go to graduate school and be my best self, whatever that is. And I know that I might have one or two or three more lifetimes in me. maybe this feeling will be lost and forgotten one day.

But how do I write my resume, pay for exams, and tutors, fill in bubbles on applications, and run myself ragged, knowing that in its final season you won’t be there to taste the fruit with me? 

What about having it all? 

I think about you and I in that little studio apartment together. Sharing a bed big enough to stretch our limbs, yet still ending up in a pile together. Waking up and drinking our coffee out of the same mug, coming home to each other’s arms.

I try to picture that when it all becomes too much. I cling onto the hope that you’ll be there, and I’ll be there, and we will be wherever "there" is together. 

And sometimes I mention it to you, and wait for your reply. It takes awhile for me to get up the courage to say it. I’m afraid of the response. And usually, what I get reaffirms my fears. 

A silence that takes up the room. 

But in the end, the earth is dying. And people are starving. And black people are being shot. And wars are beginning and ending. And I love you. And might not be around to say it again tomorrow. 

So you asked me what’s going on with me? 

It’s that clock that counts down the days until we graduate in the building where I work on campus. Its red letters ooze out of that black digital screen. 

And I know I’ll get up on that stage with a big toothy smile, owned by however many days the clock says I have left with you.