These second hands inside our mind tell more than time. Each hour whispers our demise, each racing thought a spinning
facet off track. My brother’s unhinging framework and all my unwinding, parts discarded; others pawned off
never returning. I do not know us anymore. I do not recognize our unassembling brains. These days when I feel hollow,
will no steel wheel or release I think of Hemingway, Van Gogh, and Twain, how their brains tiptoed
on razor’s edge. Each of them winding into a delicate marvel of mechanics, their sanity balancing on hairpin-thin
bolts—twisted timepieces that keep in sync, whose lost minds are brilliant, still.
There should be a special place in the jewelry shop for watches whose faces split into gorgeous fragments,
whose missing numbers give them character, and rusty hands are exposed. Turn them over and see how imperfectly meticulous.
I wish my brother could be seen as a functioning fossil, with intricate movement. I wish we could find a shelf that appreciates us for all our unwinding.
A shop where we are valued as gadgets that measure moments, that capture time with a broken gasp.