Twelve Minutes After

It’s twelve minutes after 11, did you already make your wish? I stand in a kitchen that hums like a sick lung while the envelopes glare like a dirty dish, I press a palm to the counter that holds the weight better than I do, listen to the water knock in the pipes like a collector practicing my name, Messages ping with brave faces and borrowed smiles, “hey can you talk,” “hey carry this,” “hey tell me it’s all part of the game,” I want to be the rock but the switch is hot and every sentence I try to lift comes apart in my hands, I have walked the hallways that smell of lemon and metal, watched slow medicine drip its thin demands, I held my breath for a scan, unlearned prayer in waiting rooms where even the magazines look dead, Faith sits beside me like a coat forgotten on a chair, still mine by memory, but it doesn’t fit the dread, The minute everyone treats like a magic door slides past without a blink, twelve minutes after eleven and the dark is fed.
We’re all gonna make it They keep saying that Twelve minutes after eleven The room says “not yet” Rent wants an answer The clock draws a line Are we all gonna make it Or is that just a lie? We’re not gonna make it out alive.

Tonight the mirror is just glass and a list of losses I haven’t sorted out, A cold witness that never lies, floorboards breathing like a tired animal moving about, I carry groceries and news I cannot sweeten, I carry shaking hands and a calendar with circles that look like a noose, I carry old promises that fit like shoes with nails through the soles, walking without an excuse, People ask for light and I bring presence, people ask for certainty and I bring water, a blanket, a ride at dawn, I bring the small loyal things because the big words feel fake when the time is drawn, The dark learns my habits, not cruel, just hungry, while the minute hand walks past the shrine of matched numbers, Into that honest stretch where the slogans don’t work and the lucky one slumbers.
We’re all gonna make it That’s the chant they spin Twelve minutes after eleven The luck runs thin The hallway breathes colder The drip does not care Are we all gonna make it I wouldn’t swear We’re not gonna make it here.

I have told a voice on the phone that I am here while meaning I am scared, I have stood in a parking lot with a paper wristband that cut like thread, breathing air I haven’t shared, I have done math in my head that feels like cutting wire with teeth, smiled for someone who needed that shape more than I did, I learned that courage is not the shout in the song but the click of the seatbelt when the fear is hid, Driving the same road again and again, showing up even when my hands are a field of static, I do not promise forever, I promise coffee that stays warm, a chair that holds, nothing cinematic, Just the patience to sit through the noise of machines without faking a hope.

The dread waits at the foot of the bed and calls itself certainty, I turn its pockets inside out and find receipts and lint, no guarantee, At twelve minutes after eleven the favors come due and the stories lose their paint, The mouth in the plaster asks for sugar and I keep my pockets closed like a saint, If there is a hand that saves it will be callused and warm and plain, It will not arrive with a magic word, it will arrive with a knock you recognize in the rain.
We’re all gonna make it Maybe not all Twelve minutes after eleven I watch the wall Today wants its pound of flesh The numbers go flat Are we all gonna make it I live without that We’re not gonna make it.

If you need me I will be here with keys loud and eyes open, counting out dreams like spare change, If you ask for a map I will offer the road and my shoulder and the name of the hill, however strange, Twelve minutes after eleven the wish runs out, and the night begins, Walk anyway, keep moving, even if we’re paying for our sins. Are we all gonna make it? We’re not gonna make it, are we? When the lights go out I can still feel the teeth, I keep breathing anyway while the night files me down to a key, A smaller key that still fits the door underneath.