Tick-Tock

Tick—tock... tick—tock... The world shrunk down to a square of apartment walls — walls! sleep won't come no matter how you call — call! desperate for some comforting news, all I get is hospital reports — the blues! Tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock — time don't stop, frantic gallop, can't stall, can't drop, forced intermission, an ark in the flood, a light in the dark, a light in the dark! And I don't care that I'll be a creature there... I'm a creature everywhere — stripped bare. No slander, no lies — I'm a total zero, damaged goods — and I don't know where to go. Tick-tock... tick-tock... Time don't wait, it just rolls on. Tick-tock... tick-tock... World on fire, and I'm barely holding on. TICK-TOCK! TICK-TOCK! ...barely holdin' on... The hours flow, a desperate wave carries me — me! onto coastal rocks, nowhere to be — be! Water of time, come cover me up! Let the breakwater cut my face — I've had enough! Mass of digits merged into one, let my blood mix freely till it's done, how hard it is to drown in timelessness, never finding a saving ford — unless... Though what ford? In the depths — just someone's feet in a bucket of cement... cold concrete. The whole world's one big hospital room, and I'm filling in for the patient — doom. Tick-tock... tick-tock... Time don't wait, it just rolls on. Tick-tock... tick-tock... World on fire, and I'm barely holding on. TICK-TOCK! TICK-TOCK! ...barely holdin' on... No one is right, no one is to blame — tick-tock, tick-tock — the clock sings like the surf's refrain. Words break apart in exhaustion, like that ill-fated Boeing once broke — combustion! And everything around — a raging fire, melted silver metallic, funeral pyre, past lives go through the flame, become pieces of a stained-glass frame — frame! ...pieces of a stained-glass frame... But where do you find a fire station when the whole world's off the rails — no salvation?! And time in blind ruthlessness puts out sun fragments against our pupils — hopelessness! Tick-tock! Tick-tock! Tick-tock! Tick-tock! ...tick... tock... Tick... tock... Tick... tock...