It’s twelve minutes after eleven, did you already make your wish,
or did you let the moment slip past
like every other promise that dissolved before it could take shape,
I’m standing in a kitchen that hums like exhausted machinery
while bills stare from the counter with their red-ink mouths open,
calendar marked with appointments that feel less
like plans and more like countdown timers,
my palm pressed flat against laminate that holds weight better than I do lately,
My phone lights up with messages asking can you talk,
can you hold this fear for me, can you tell me how this ends,
and I want to be solid ground for someone but the foundation’s cracking
and every reassurance I try to construct falls apart before I can hand it over,
I’ve paced hospital corridors that smell like industrial lemon
and desperation, watched medication drip its measured mercy through clear tubes,
held my breath waiting for test results in rooms
where even the outdated magazines look like they’ve given up,
Faith hangs on me like a coat I’ve outgrown, still mine by habit
but no longer fitting right, and that superstitious minute everyone treats
like a magic threshold passes without ceremony,
twelve minutes after eleven and reality clears its throat.
We’re all gonna make it, that’s what they keep saying,
Twelve minutes after eleven and the room says not yet,
Rent demands an answer, the clock keeps its rhythm,
Are we all gonna make it, or is that just something we tell ourselves,
We’re not gonna make it out alive.
Tonight the mirror reflects nothing but facts I haven’t processed,
a cold accounting that never softens its assessment,
and the floorboards settle like something breathing that knows my weight
and my patterns and my specific brand of restlessness,
I’m carrying groceries and diagnoses I can’t sugarcoat, carrying my own trembling hands
and someone else’s treatment schedule marked with dates that look
like small desperate moons, carrying old assurances that fit
like shoes with nails driven through the soles,
People ask for hope and I bring my physical presence, people ask for certainty
and I bring water, blankets, rides to appointments before dawn,
I bring the small faithful gestures because the grand promises feel fraudulent
when machines are measuring someone’s remaining time,
The darkness learns my routines
and something in the walls laughs—not malicious, just honest —
while the minute hand walks past the shrine of matching numbers into that stretch
where the platitudes stop working.
We’re all gonna make it, that’s the chant we repeat,
Twelve minutes after eleven and the odds get thinner,
The hospital hallway breathes colder, the IV drip doesn’t care about intentions,
Are we all gonna make it, I can’t swear to that,
We’re not gonna make it here.
The optimism with teeth waits at the foot of the bed calling itself faith,
I turn its pockets inside out and find glitter
and receipts and nothing that actually pays the cost,
At twelve minutes after eleven the bills come due and the stories lose their polish,
the cracks in the plaster ask for meaning and I keep my hands empty of lies,
If there’s a force that saves it’ll have calluses and warmth and no fanfare,
it won’t arrive with slogans, it’ll arrive with a knock you recognize in your bones.
We’re all gonna make it, maybe not all of us,
Twelve minutes after eleven and I’m still standing,
Today wants its pound of flesh, the numbers flatten out,
Are we all gonna make it, I’m done pretending I know,
We’re not gonna make it.
If you need me I’ll be here with my keys jangling loud and my eyes open,
counting out whatever hope we have left like spare change
and protecting the small warmth we’ve managed to keep,
If you ask for promises I’ll offer presence, if you ask for maps I’ll offer the road
and my shoulder and the honest name of what we’re climbing,
Twelve minutes after eleven the wish expires
and the night answers and I keep walking anyway.