The Hourglass

Life feels different,

when your mind understands that your body is simply an hourglass.

Sand,

slipping through unseen fingers,

each grain a memory,

a choice,

a heartbeat.

You learn that hunger lives in the top chamber,

dreams get stacked high,

you become restless,

pressing against the glass.

And below;

what has already fallen,

you find the losses,

the loves,

the mistakes that cannot be lifted back.

You realize you are both chambers at once;

the weight of the past,

the urgency of the present,

and the ache of the future waiting to descend.

Isn’t it cruel?

To feel the narrowing throat,

the bottleneck of time pressing each moment into dust,

yet still be asked to smile,

to walk,

to breathe as though eternity is yours.

But isn’t it holy too?

To know you are finite,

that every grain falling is both a death and a beginning.

Life feels different when you see yourself this way;

a body of glass,

a soul of sand,

an hourglass both breaking and being made whole,

over and over again.