c a r m o d y } d8

( s i l v e r s )

Tick tock, tick, tock, tick,
tock. 

And I take off running -- I run in my dreams. My feet hitting grass and tile and concrete on the beat of my tick, tock, tick, tock, eight o eight heart beat and I stare in the void. Tick, inhale, pound and hit and, tock, exhale. Crazed hair and heavy breathing and I internalize the beating drum, the echo of my blood dream and the pumping of everything I'm made of tick, tock, tick, I run in my dreams. 

Tripping up on asphalt and running up volcanoes I dream of it; I d r e a m. The word on light on my tongue like melting candy, I dream, I dream, I dream of sanity. I dream of the in's and out's the that tick, tick, ticking, in the back of my ears to die down with every few steps but I always catch myself again. The black kisses my velvet eyes, sweat melting clothes to my skin, night's all my thoughts and I think. 

I think sometimes I'm one of the only sane ones here.

Night eats my dreams, bittersweet clouds and I wake up in sweats, the sheet beneath me soaked like candle wax and I jump on them. Each step on clouds, my hair bigger than each one and it just keeps growing, and growing and I'm the smoke of the volcano, I'm the clouds in the sky that I count during the day and I'm the stars in the sky that I study at night. One tick, two tock, three tick, four tock, my fingers popping with each jump and each star child and cloud mother -- five tick, six tock, seven tick, eight tock.

Lime light kisses my cheek, I count the time and shake his hand, this attic home ticking away the minutes and hour twenty three, minutes twenty one. Twenty three, twenty tock, the clock's swinging in my eyes and I'm still sane I swear. I'll be lost and last at twenty three ticks and twenty three minutes -- twenty four minutes. I'll be late, late, I can't be.  

She speaks like a growl in my ear, Ridley, Ridley, the name burning in my tick tock candle wax skin and I skip light step, black socks grinding against the rough stair case wood. Tick, tock, tick, I throw up fingers like sign language at the seconds, smoke in my nose -- tock, tock, 
tock. 

Asleep. I smell the licorice in the cold in my hand, it's whispers tick, tock, tick, tock like a melody and it sings for me -- me. Carmody Silvers, Scars Meld Ivory, Cards Solve Miry, Myriads Clovers, it's all me like it was all him and I leap down the giant house in one step, down my own little hole and stab my hair with my fingers. He sings for me, and all my forgotten things, all my forgotten brothers and sisters and these people aren't me! 

I survive.
tock.

We aren't alike, my hand on the doorknob of reality and it's cold metal hisses at me tick, tock, tick, tock, I don't have time for this. Late, I overslept, star dust in my eye lids and my hair the clouds and I kiss it all goodbye. Light steps, light fingers, twenty three hours, twenty five minutes, I don't have time for this! They sleep and I run it out, shoeless and chipped finger nails and I run out the bugs in my soul. Niles helps me the most, Madds and Niles and Thatcher kinda, kinda kinda, I think. I'm sane, tock, tick, tock, tock, I have guns for hands and lead shins. 

Each bullet a second, tick, tock, tick, tock in my eardrums. 

I tick survive tock. 

Not live, not dream or think or sane or tick or tock or this or that, or the melted doorknobs or stars or clouds, just me and him. And the street, I held his hand and jogged behind him. He kissed my forehead and threw the pocket watch at me and told me to count the seconds, I drea m ed, and they told me that that's all it was and I spit in their faces. No I didn't, but I thought about it because he loved me like the sun loved the moon and the seconds loved the minutes loved the hours loved the days that go on and on and I'm here. 

Alone. 

My father was a good man, I tell myself, and I tried to read about it, in newpapers and magazines and in the name Silvers read only silvers and family read out thirteen more. I never taught myself how to, not to read, not to write, and I r u n. Fire at my feet and Ridley's ember breath in my nose with every one -- tick, tock, tick, tock. I can't stop now because I'll never start again. 

He died -- bang! -- a single shot to the brain by a peacekeeper and I traded knowledge for working for Ridley and she told me everything. He was a good man, he had to be, she told me in lips of gold when all I could hear was silver. His name was Michael, and Madds sung it himself and Thatcher told me how to write it and it's the few I can.

But I survive. 

Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick,
tock.

And I don't stop running, scared that I won't ever start again. 

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