4:27 AM

2012 version of myself expressing my hatred for a particularly brutal high school all-nighter and therefore doing nothing to deal with said all-nighter in the slightest.

Thieves, that’s all.

Clocks are thieves.

Listen, listen to the noisy silence of the tick-tock, tick-tock.

You hear it, you know it, and you ignore it,

But every tick is a second stolen, every tock a second more.

Time, irreplaceable, un-renewable, priceless

Time spent, time wasted, time used, time lost.

 

The clock steals time by counting it,

By audibly announcing its noiseless passing.

Clocks record the seconds, show the hours,

But time is not numbers and ticks.

 

Time is now. And just then. And now. And a lifetime from now.

Every tick steals the now (the next now’s just then), every tock the next now,

Rhythmically robbing us of the essence of moments

By reducing them to a mere sound and then letting them pass.

 

Time cannot be taken, and it cannot be given,

But time can be stolen; stolen from the reality, the now,

            And from the mind.