If I wind back these hands far enough

will I find you sitting opposite me?

Jittery and nervous

trying to explain what the doctor told you

and telling me stories,

no doubt in the hope I’ll stop asking questions,

about why you can’t sit still,

why you couldn’t string words together last time we spoke,

why you keep bouncing your gaze from cocktail glass

to candle, to bar staff,

like you’re waiting for an alarm to sound

that really we should all be expecting.

I will count your drinks again.

I will make a comment about it

to the mutual friend sat beside you

when you venture off to use the bathroom.

I will be worried again

and that wasn’t something new

just exaggerated in the current scenario.

When didn’t I realise

the clock was counting down

and I didn’t see the lies

you wrapped over my worries

like badly applied plasters.

What is it about that past

that can make it haunt the present so?

Why can I not leave that cocktail bar behind?

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Daily Post: Present

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I’ve written two posts today from the Daily Post prompt present. I didn’t set our intending to but this poem just sort of slipped out anyway. Mostly because of the prompt’s link with time. I’m the sort of person who spends a lot of thought on how I could have changed the outcome of situations if I’d handled things different, if I’d know things that I know now then. In the end it’s a waste of time. I can’t change the past, I just have to live with the present as it is.