A Curious Time

• Laura Toscano, Grade 11
• Poetry
• 2009

Under the tree I wait.
One hundred days pass in an hour;
One thousand minutes in only five;
And the memories play over in my mind.

I reflect: perhaps it is my own doing
Which has led me to the shade of the tree.
The months of bliss and unfathomable joy,
Of seemingly profound perfection.

What am I thinking? What do I want?
Only I can know, yet am without ideas.
The confusion is unsettling,
The inevitable truth undesired, unwelcome.

A figure approaches and shade engulfs limbs, a body.
The thing says it is sorry; I forgive too quickly.
At all costs, I must be free
Though suppressed sadness is what I receive.

I am told to be angry, furious, upset,
But the latter is my only emotion.
“It was nothing. It meant nothing,”
I force myself to forget.

Days pass, and the figure approaches,
Though a different boy it is.
He’s past the past and free from dwelling,
And I made myself into the opposite.

The questions start forming:
“Why?” “Where?” “Again?”
But all are greeted with abstraction.
The past is the past and the memories hazy.

Time heals the wounds
Left open by my desire to forget.
And time passes as it should;
Days in days, minutes in minutes.