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the time keeper - keisha wee

If I could I would (and I probably should) have

Taken all the clocks down and rewound

Them back to midnight because I wanted

To restart the dawn, the month, the year

So that I could redo it all and start from

Zero and rewrite the pages in my past


With a pen in my left and a tool in my right I

Tried to change my story and fix the brokenness and mess that

I had become but as the minutes ticked by and as

The seconds grew longer I would realise that it was

All for nothing and that I could not fix something

That was too damaged, too broken


The dials would turn and the knobs would

click and yet in my head it was all stuck because

There was never the right time to do what was

Right and yet somehow I managed to always

Do it wrong and mess it all up and the hands

Of the clock would go spinning away


Broken, they were, spoilt and fragmented but

No one was around to fix it and so

Sometimes they would stop and halt at

Times I had forgotten // and memories that

I had lost in the pursuit of finding more to fit

In each second, in each minute, in each hour


I spent too much time turning the hands anti-clockwise in an

Effort to repair the past so it might fix the

Future but futility has always been my super power and

Even though I had enough minutes, enough

Hours, enough days I would eventually

Realise they would never quite be enough


Trapped in reality but dreaming of fiction I would

Be torn between two worlds but somehow I never quite

Belonged to either and so I was stuck in a present that

I didn’t exactly fit in and yet I would try my hardest to live

As if I belonged somewhere, as if I had

Done it all the right way all this time


I knew in my heart and in the ticking of

The clock that I was lost in a moment that I could not

Escape and I was stuck in a time that I did not

Fit in but somehow I would keep trying and eventually I would hear

The measured swing of the grandfather clock with

His echoes of a story I did not want to listen to


Rhythmically, right on the hour I would listen and hear that

The bells would chime their song and the

Pendulum would swing back and forth to keep

Track of the minutes so I would not lose myself in

The chase to keep up with the sands of time

As they trickle away too fast, too quick


I was always too caught up in running after

Something ephemeral and yet

I still continued to run after it no matter how

Distant it was even though I knew I was too

Foolish, too cursed and too bound by a clock that would

Someday stop.



"The Time Keeper is inspired by the chase for something greater. As we journey through life, we get so caught up in the pursuit for more and as time passes, we often forget about our roots, or where we belong, or who we used to be. Unfortunately by the time we realise we spent too much time chasing after achieving more, it's too late, and we've forgotten our essence so we try to rewind and change it all but again, time and tide waits for no man and no matter how much more time we want, eventually the clocks of our life will just stop."

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