So often we wish for the workday to end.
To blink up at the unyielding clock
and be home

The afternoon incites a smile,
the morning, a groan

What we don’t realize in these moments
where we will the clock to move
is that it’s not just our shift we are asking to pass us by.
It’s easy to forget that we’re there
five days a week
9 hours a day, sometimes more.
That when we get home we’re tired.
That all the time we do have to ourselves
moves quickly, too,
no matter what pieces of it we are able to
hold onto in the moments that matter more.

Our children’s hair is longer
—It will only keep growing
Our parent’s skin is thinner, than it used to be
—the grooves of their eyes can only get deeper,
as will your own

And yet we beg time to move us,
we thrust fuel into the already
speeding engine of our lives and once it has momentum it does not slow for the gaps between.

The tide, for us, is always coming in.
How much time will you offer up?
How much shoreline will you give away
to the sea