FLEETING HOURS

Fleeting Hours  

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Time, it seems, drifts unnoticed,

A silent river we wade through blind—

Clocks tick on mantelpieces, dust-cloaked,

Watches gleam on wrists, ignored,

Their hands spinning in quiet mockery.

We don’t feel the seconds slip,

Don’t hear the minutes hum their soft retreat,

Until suddenly they grow precious—

Until the hours sharpen into jewels,

Rare and finite,

Ones we’d clutch to our chests,

Hoard like breath in a drowning tide.

Then, every tick becomes a plea,

A call to save, to savor,

To cradle each minute, each second,

Every trembling detail of you.  

It sneaks up slow, this shift—

Days once sprawled endless,

A canvas of careless laughter,

Picnics under a lazy sun,

Nights spilling into dawn without a glance backward.

We’d lounge in the haze of it,

Unbothered by the clock’s stern face,

Until life pressed its urgency upon us—

Until the hours we’d tossed away

Turned to gold we couldn’t spend fast enough.

Now I trace the contours of moments,

The way light bends across your skin,

The echo of your voice in the quiet,

Wishing I could bottle them,

Seal them in amber to hold forever,

A vault against the thief of time.  

One expectation anchors me here—

To give you the best of what I am,

To pour out the marrow of me,

Unfiltered, unguarded,

A gift laid bare at your feet.

And in return, I seek the mirror of it—

Reciprocation,

The way you make me feel alive,

A current sparking through my veins,

Warmth blooming where shadows once slept.

Your presence is a rhythm I dance to,

A melody I didn’t know I craved,

And I want you to hear it too—

To feel the echo of my pulse

Beating in time with yours,

A silent vow woven into every glance.  

Pleasure blooms in the sharing,

In those fragile, fleeting moments with you—

The brush of your hand against mine,

A spark igniting the air between us,

The weight of your laughter filling the room,

Soft as feathers, bright as flame.

I long to handle your entire frame,

Every curve and line of you,

With a fragile-perfection—

Fingers trembling as they trace your edges,

Gentle as if you might shatter,

Reverent as if you’re eternal.

I’d wrap you in the tenderness of now,

Shield you from the hours that slip too fast,

Hold you close as the world spins on,

Oblivious to our quiet rebellion.  

Time, once a stranger we shrugged off,

Now looms like a judge,

Its gavel striking with every chime.

I see it in the lines creeping across my hands,

The silver threading through your hair,

The way dusk falls quicker than it used to.

And yet, with you, I defy it—

Steal back the seconds in stolen glances,

Stretch the minutes in the warmth of your breath,

Savor the details like a starving man at a feast—

The crinkle of your eyes when you smile,

The sigh you let slip in half-sleep,

The way you fit against me,

A puzzle piece I didn’t know I’d lost.  

So here we stand,

Two souls bartering with the clock,

Trying to conserve what can’t be kept,

To etch these hours into something solid—

A monument of us,

Built from the rubble of fleeting days.

I’ll give you the best of me,

Every shard of light I have left,

And pray you’ll mirror it back,

That we’ll share this dance of moments,

Fragile, perfect, fleeting,

Until the hands of time still,

And all that’s left is the echo

Of how we loved

When the hours mattered most.