Slipping into Madness

F2: The Mad Hatter

Forever stuck in time! Write a story (or short poem) where your character is always stuck at 3 p.m. (<1000 words or < 40 lines)

How much time is seventy-two years,
sprinkled, like fairy lights
across one minute a day?
I eat meals for a month
at a time,
(one three pm at a time, for
thirty days)
and sleep sixteen months of
three pms
to make up my eight hours.

I loved a man, once,
a flickering candle I kissed
minute by minute,
every afternoon at three
as he grew
gray and frail--
he left me while
I grew a day older
every two of his years,
and I knew the hurt
of loving

when our baby was born,
over more than two years
of three pms,
my lover was more than a
thousand years dead--
and I told her stories
of the love we knew
minute by minute,
afternoon by afternoon,
three pm by three pm,
under changeable skies.

Line count: 32