The Clock Eats Its Own Hands
Apr 20, 2026by Aarya Patel
Ghost in the Machine
in the corner,
the clock chews minutes—
swallows whole what was never mine
to begin with.
its mouth drips syrup,
thick
and
slow
ticking is the pulse of things
that don't care if I listen.
time isn't straight.
it coils—
a serpent swallowing itself.
it loops,
days circle / rewind / distort—
old cassette tapes, warping
until the music bends
into something my body doesn't recognize.
something I can't dance to anymore.
I watch the second hand stutter—
afraid to move forward
but too restless to stop.
(can time get tired?)
does it look at itself and think,
"I've been here
too long"?
hours stretch,
rubber bands pulled tight,
SNAP—
and I blink,
land somewhere I don't remember.
other times, they fold
into each other—
paper cranes,
corners touching like they were always meant to.
I tried once—
to catch time,
press it between the pages of a book—
hold it down, make it stay,
but time is slick /
slippery,
sliding through my hands like water.
no matter how tight
I close my fist.
at night,
I hear it whisper,
a breeze through a cracked window—
soft,
telling me stories
in a language I never learned but somehow know.
it speaks in
backwards
and
forwards.
memories meet in the middle,
twist into something half-familiar,
half-impossible.
the clock keeps eating,
its hands gnawing at the edge of now,
and I want to ask—
does it ever get full?
is there a point where time says,
"no more"?
but I know the answer
(we all do)—
it never stops.
maybe that's the secret—
time isn't something we pass through,
it's something that moves through us.
and we're just the dreamers,
watching the clock chew its way
through another day,
hoping it doesn't choke
on the pieces of us we left behind.