Is It Time?

CREATIVES|KAVERI TALUKDER

White rain

Against a dark black sky.

Muddy dirt

Clings to my

Worn-out shoes.

In I walk

To a mirrored hallway,

Where no mirror showed my

True reflection.

Different people

Wait for me inside each mirror.

“Tick, tock,

Tick, tock,

Is it time?”

“Come to me,”

They sing.

The shackles

On their wrists and ankles

Run deep.

“Come to me,

Then you can let go,

Of worrying about others,

And give them a taste of

Their own medicine.”

“Come to me,

I’ll prove to you that

You are better than the

Mere mortals

Of this world.”

“Come to me,

I'll give you all the things

You desire without

Worrying about the consequences.”

I look each person in the eye,

I will never allow

These parts of me to

Dominate over

The kinder parts of me.

“Tick, tock,

Tick, tock,

Is it time?”

“Come to me,”

They sing.

I reach the

End of the hallway,

And open the

Dark cobbed-up door,

A child sat in the middle of a

Dark and wrecked room,

Silently sobbing.

“Hey, it’s okay,

I’m here now,

I’ll take care of you.”

I tell the child as

I engulf them in a hug.

It is time,

It was time.

For so long

I have abandoned the child,

From now on

I will comfort them.

From now on,

I will comfort the child,

Within me,

Rather than hiding them away.