late for school
not the first time this has happened
my internal clock is set to work – 7:30
and psych starts at 7
i can’t keep track of this all
my mental calendars have been dipped
in hydrochloric acid
i’m not meant for itineraries
but i’m trying
going to bed at nine
setting alarms for six
work at 7:30
work at 7:30
punch the clock
punch the clock
god, i want to punch the clock
the minute hand and the hour hand
are strangling me
while the second hand hits me in the kidneys
tick tock
the pendulum of a grandfather clock
is a swinging blade inching towards me

(as of late
i have to assume that the sun is still coming up
and settling down
cubicle walls and textbooks shade me from rationalizing a systematic symphony of light and then dark and after burning so much midnight oil i’m forgetting waht a normal chemical balance feels like)

my skin is as pale as computer paper
my heart beats like the beep beep at the beginning of call center calls
i want a room made of windows free of clocks where time is just something your parents made up to scare you
i’m trying to make this poem free from rhythm
free
free from
make
this
make this poem free
from rhyth-
make the poe-
m free
no beat
inevitable
inevitable
chaos leads to structure
and structures can fall from chaos
please
just a mental day
sorry
i’m just having a mental day
i’ll sleep in for once
count sheep out of order
and lose count
stop tallying everything
deny there being
seven days a week
twenty-four hours a day
three hundred and sixty five days a year
punch the clock
five days a week
forty hours
plus over time
i am over time
count the things formerly known as days
in moments

i breathe in
i breathe out
inhale
exhale
systolic
diastolic
rhythm
rhythm
maybe
this all
was in
vain.

COPYRIGHT BRICE MAIURRO 2012