Riding the Tiger (of time)

A poem by Ty Brando

Riding the Tiger (of Time)

The jungle snarls with creatures sharrrp and deadly and I think

I spy a critter craaawling about with snake-eye slits and a twisted

tongue slipping in and out, slithering across hot rocks where ruthless

suns baked the mud pies of my youth and seared my mind, which relentlessly

spins ‘round and ‘round, traveling across time, where the fresh turns

to rot and the grotty and no-good driiips down the crooked

clocks that tell the wrong time, and the trajectory of it all falls, falls, falling

like liquid, spilling and making grit out of ancient rocks.

And where is looove? Does it wait around the bend, or is it cracked

at the root and never, ever, going to find me again? My heart,

broken so many times it would take

a thousand needles to stitch me up again and then I’d still be

ragged and falling apart like the Scarecrow, speaking in the fable

about his brain, unaware of his truuue nature.

And then the sun goes down and the rain pourrrs

and pounds heavy upon the roof and what leaks in can make

a body anxious and hypervigilant without results, like salt

in a wound they say, and they are right, that’s just

what it is but I’m still standing, while I last, with a quarter-cup

of vanilla almond milk in hot black coffee and cubes like sugar stirrrred

in the swirl of my tripping mind.

When will I go?

Evidently, when it’s

time.