Silverfish

The Token of Time

When it happens–
the solidification of your worst lament,
tangled into an odd and seemingly justified consumption,
that's when you know.

Of course you don't actually know anything, really.
It's more of a sense of belonging,
like a forgotten canoe, knocking against the rotting wooden dock.
You can hear it in the middle of the night,
beyond all of the crickets chirping and bushes rustling.

But that's what it is: a wave of uncertainty,
but yet,
I am so certain of this?

Somehow I push it aside,
albeit ardently without another count.
It's so, easy, to let yourself believe what you're so sure of.
So easy to remind yourself how wonderfully enthralling the past was.
And everything around it disregarded, desperately trying to get back whatever was so wonderful.

It's perhaps the worst trap of all–
delusion and consumption.
Confining and prodding the caged animal alongside the riverbank.

You can still hear the old canoe on the water, though.
It's fainter, like it's farther away, but it's still there.
Always knocking.