n. the fragility of your vows; the day you left me
On the first turn, a gift I would always cherish
You made me a portrait of a bloated pufferfish
The lines were grotesque, but it didn't matter
It's really the thought that counts.
On the third turn, fleece-wrapped circular presents packaged in threes
Fluffy translucent orbs containing your precious similes
Unlatching my torso like a safe, I slot them in one at a time
I show you meek sides of mine.
On the fifth turn, the piece that makes boredom feel threatened
A watch that ticks thirteen thousand ticks every tick of a second
Delicate and precise measures, yet it could never pinpoint
The second I fell for you.
How I wish you could see your reflection on my dial
click, clack, clicking away from when our hands overlapped.
——
The hours slip through my glass fissures as I sing to the chime of your name
recalling our conversations in synchronized long-short intervals, on the verge of relapse.
On the seventh turn, you stopped giving me gifts
But one gift of yours had rewound my rifts
You left your lightweight fountain pen, a tool to soothe my aching troubles
Why were you in such a rush?
On the ninth turn, you vanished from the ephemerides in end-stopped time
Like a disjointed constellation of rhymes, your promises never aligned
But I must have done something, was I too clingy?
An error is what I am.
On the twelfth turn, leavings of an overcast season
A sonnet recited without meter, a comet mistaken for a meteor's beacon
I flake off the rust from my hands, but it doesn't matter
My broken cog stopped turning.