The following is up to my traditionally vague standards... Now featuring an unhealthy dose of cold medicine!
Ten Minutes to May
Ten minutes to midnight…
…And within the narrow span of one frosting breath to another there exists a warmer bed in a place she is not and as far removed as the planet's molten core, sharing a similar burn. Carpet fibers are trodden into parallel tracks, a bitter gallery of twilight's shimmer flattened by a wakeful woman and a pattern of thought unsolved by the pacing. Never has she been so close to someone who must stand beyond her reach. The notion of tomorrow is riddled in the abstract, yet the taunting clock heralds its nearing with strident strokes. It seems at times that she will not live to hold the riddle in hand.
In a room rendered measurably colder by the violation of discontent, pillows lay in piled decadence but offer no comfort to a back pressing into open air. The occupant cannot stay where the chill has made a nest with quiet's suffocating twine. Waiting is a hobby made torturous by moonlight as time declares independence from ritual by striking up a drifting, irregular beat. It will not move according to her will, a punishment atop other curses. The reality that there is nothing to hurry toward is better swallowed in daylight, when indulgence in casual pretense is perfected between unheeded prayers.
Ten minutes to Monday…
…And the stars assemble into battle formation across a sky that allows the thunder to voice its dark opinion. The shaking ground is condemnation, moisture following like arrows striving for a saturation they will not achieve. For the armor has fallen, it matters little; the air is too sweet in the cleansing. To be drenched in the newness of something as pure and wrong as a lightning strike is enticing and she pulls him into the flood to taste what she will deny tomorrow. In the coming hours he will earn her anger once provocation paints his words but she orders a preemptive assault of forgiveness to the front lines.
The storm calms when they do and such mirroring plants wicked seeds, one of a thousand theories she wants to test. Time, an unwilling observer, refuses the request for an extension of its bounty and steals the shade of night with its persistent march. Stretched fingers of the sun sneak along sheets to touch where she's been and will go once more before duty makes such presumptions dangerous. She seeks no promises and he'll oblige, save a tiny gesture just before the real world ingests that final bite.
Ten minutes to May…
…And a calendar of stark colors flaps on a breeze, portraying an eagerness to turn the page, beckoning in a lazy wave to forget what came before on black-lined squares and pen scrawl. The outgoing photo displays a picturesque shot of budding plants guarded by the kindly sun, an analogy for something distant and suddenly unimportant. She wastes no time assigning metaphoric life to moments, the moment itself being sufficient to carve its own purpose.
There remains just enough minutes in the fading embers of April to blow a cooling breath across a steaming tea and ponder what next month's photo will be. Seconds sweep by in a yawn, in no rush to uncover the coming glossy view, but she waits with the patience of one accustomed to deferring fulfillment. It only sweetens the reveal, knowledge gained after extending a tolerant hand to slow-moving events. They've chosen not to plead for speed from an idle clock and the reward comes in the flip of paper. May approaches on its own wings and so marks the grounding of their solitary flight.