Kristen Nassar

Tick

by Kristen Nassar

Black hands rotate in jolts around my left atrium, Caressing the flesh with unyielding plastic, Manmade and harsh, Stimulated to movement by gears within my skull, Clicking to connect, and then to disconnectSweet, abstract moments, and then The connection to Reality. To Time. The ticking of my heart's hands The sense of being swallowed up by summer's winds And then my imminent deliverance into an unlovingAutumn Now sends my blood into a nervous frenzyInvading my shoulders and back, my elbows, my fingertips And finally the gears speed up their clicking, Which, in turn, speeds up the ticking And time flurries past in myriad sounds artificial.

Mind! Are you there? Or are you just fiction? (God! Are you there? Or are you just fiction?) Take over these gears; stop the incessant clicking! ForTime is hollow, manmade, unrealProgrammed by humanity, not by Truth!

AsamL

I am as manmade as the plastic hands of my heart Mind will not respond, for I am but gears. Her existence-only an invention artificial as I. (His existence-only an invention artificial as I.)

I lay prostrate in front of Time's glinting, copper throne. I will oxidize in the summer winds And submit to the unloving autumn. My left atrium will chafe more and more with each tick, Will wear away until I am just a broken watch.

The fate of Man is but clockwork.