Undone

May 16, 2025

Cross-posted by Mercurial

"On the weight of time mixed with expectation This poem, by Cassandra, is a beautiful metaphor for the internal disorientation of trying to find one’s place in the world. I love how the rhythm and texture mirror the speaker’s emotional landscape, shifting from sharp, bold lines to a more faltering, searching tone, as if the form itself is wrestling with time and expectation. "

- lyw

I am not fond of time, reader.

I am 24 now, but I was 23, 22,

12 and 2, an endless cycle of days.

I thought that I had all figured out,

But I know less than I used to at 16

And I am still waiting to grow wings

And fly away, above the skies

Soar unbound above the pale blue

Of a winter day, my long lasting winter.

I am 24 now and I haven't touched the bottom of myself, I don't know,

I am not aware of who I am,

Who I will be and who I will not be.

Time feels like cruelty, chasing me

With a knife down my throat, with the shoulds and must not(s), the unfulfilled

Hobbies, obligations, promises.

They show themselves on my desk,

Begging to be addressed, to have a name

But time flows and doesn't wait for anyone

Except for me, he is sitting next to me

Whispering "Hurry, hurry, you have little left".

A sense that one day my thoughts will catch me up

And that all the time I wasted will be going down the drain.

"I can still use some time" I tell myself as the beating heart inside my chest skips a beat

And time feels closer and closer to his end.

But I am only 24, I am late to the big chase of life

As I see people reaching the highest mountains

While I am still learning how to walk on my feet

And while others are running and feasting on their own abundant banquet,

I am still eating from the ground of mother earth.

Time is rushing but will time come?

Sit down with me, gently scroll me and say: "It's over now, you can rest".

Will my time come, when I can stop running

After one thought, after one idea, after one inspiration, as if it could save me from being undone?