Instructions for Borrowed Time

Time is not a surface to skim—

It is a depth to wade through slowly.

Not the polished verse of campaign songs,

But a cipher, waiting to be unraveled.

Pause.

Linger.

It was never meant to be rushed—

It was made for our comfort,

Yet we sprint past it.

There are others too,

Twin companions in the sky:

Sun and Moon—

Tools, we say.

The Moon, quiet in her retreat,

The Sun, fierce and unyielding,

Like the woman—

Not born to serve,

But cast into service.

Lives laid out like offerings,

On platters of power and pretense.

We pause again,

Shape futures with trembling hands,

One breath, one choice at a time.

We think we command time—

Snap fingers,

Dry oceans,

Summon light.

All at our beck and call.

Until—

We age.

And learn that time was never ours.

It wandered,

Unmoved by our rituals.

We, the discarded prayers

Of forgotten gods,

Are swept away

By the very feast we thought we prepared.

The sun, in its burning glory,

Fades too soon.

Darkness arrives uninvited.

And the freedom we claimed

Should have come with a warning—

A manual,

For borrowed time.