Dear Mr. Salvador Dalí,

 

You were onto something.

People think you were on something.

I think you get it better than any of us can.

You called it before anyone else — time is a sadistic bitch.

You knew how clocks taunt me

as their minutes slide through my desperately slow hands.

 

Okay, I don't know if you actually thought about losing time —

I didn't pay attention in Modern Euro.

I was too busy scheduling and re-scheduling my day.

Seconds stream away like spilled water. Don’t you dare sit still.

Another minute might disappear. For all my time paranoia

you'd think I'd try to make the seconds count — as I count them.

 

I can catch up on life at the end right?

Mr. Dalí please tell me I'm right. I need some assurance right now.

I think I'm wasting more seconds writing this shitty attempt at a poem.

Typing this sentence took 5 seconds. 10 more if you count the time

I took editing mistakes my fingers made as they frantically slipped across the keys.

 

Mr. Dalí when did it start for you?

I don’t know when it started for me. This scheduling thing.

It blended into me. I woke up one day with it inked on my skin,

like a dark watercolor paintbrush diffuses onto paper,

sinking and melding into the seams of the starched plant pulp.

I never asked when I started scheduling

.

If you got a tumor, you’d ask when it started.

You’d be stupid not to. It could kill. But there’s no harm to scheduling.  

I get complimented on it, even. Everyone says it’s exceptional.

My time management. Except that phrase provokes a sense of me holding time

on a leash, bending it to my will and fitting it into neat

little boxes that serve me. That’s a nice thought.

 

I can’t stand uncertainty, you see. Been afraid of the dark ever since I can remember.

Even 5 year old me knew there were monsters in there.

Knew that wasn’t the place to go, no no. Except then I grew up. If you can call it that.

Regardless — the monsters stopped being fanged creatures ready to devour me.

They became liquid. Dangerously so. Never trust a shape-shifter Mr. Dalí.

 

They evolved into sensations of smoke and mirrors

and the occasional bed of nails you trip over trying to find a way out.

The dark began to think for me. Slid through my mind, inky black,

smooth as silken venom, telling me:

Do you know that you set your alarm? How can you be sure you really know? Why don’t you check? Just once? It can’t hurt. Once more? If you don’t schedule your time right now you won’t have a plan. If you don’t have a plan then you lose seconds. Less time to act. Less time to do. Less time for homework meaning less sleep meaning lowered performance and less memory of class lectures  and lowered grades and lowered chance of getting into an Ivy and lowered metabolic rate meaning lowered self-esteem meaning-

 

Sometimes, only just sometimes, I can stop some of the bastards.

Sometimes I feel the venomous adrenaline coursing through my veins

subside just before it pierces my heart. Sometimes.

Sometimes I can’t stop them.

 

Okay I’ll confess it: I know what causes the scheduling.

There I said it will you get off my back now?

But don’t expect me to admit it aloud. Someone may hear.

 

Can’t show weakness. Can’t show that you’re running on a treadmill

against cross-country all-stars and you’re trying

to keep up but your lungs hurt and muscles ache

and the only comfort you find is in the numbers

of how much time you have left.

 

Pro-tip Mr. Dalí: if they’re just numbers,

you can convince yourself you can make it.

Divide them in halves and force them down like medicine.

Break up the pill and mix it with pudding.

You can still taste the eau de parfum of the sickly

sweet essence of the medicine, with nice notes of garbage dump

and undertones of vomit, but less so.

 

Make it 2 more years. Make it 1 more year. Make it 1 more semester. Make it one

more quarter. Make it one more month. Make it 1 more week. Make it 1 more day.

 

Sand keeps slipping through the hourglass,

rushing like water though that tiny gap

between infuriatingly perfect glass globes.

Can’t they slow down for just a second?

Take a breather? Jesus fuck. It’s all because the damned globes are liars.

 

They trick you. I’m telling you they want to see you fail.

They betray me, tell me they hold multitudes of seconds.

Mr. Dalí you know it’s never enough.

 

Clocks won’t stop melting in my hands, liquid gold.

Slipping, sliding, spilling,

Gleefully taunting “It’s your fault you know.”

Mr. Dalí I can hear your “I Told You So!”

Leave me alone right now I’m scrambling

to scrape up every scrap of goopy time into my hands before —

the puddle of minutes evaporates

along with everything I scheduled into it.

 

Mr. Dalí help me please what do I do? When my schedule disintegrates, so do I.

I once scheduled two whole weeks to the last minute.

The pride of knowing my plan for the future

swelled in my body like a balloon and for a fleeting second,

I felt that silly bird called hope. What a joke.

 

Emily Dickinson was too optimistic.

Screw her for telling me a lie. Hope’s not nice.

Because of her, I felt like, just maybe,

if I could find a way to beat the numbers,

to dash around the falling sand grains of seconds,

I could make it to the end.

 

I could make it that day, that week, that month, that semester, that year

and it would be alright, because I had a plan.

 

My scheduling takes time.

I know this, you don’t need to tell me dear god shut up.

I know it’s a nervous tick okay?

 

I know that I plan my life more than maybe one should

but I also know that when I’m done scheduling,

I release my breath. So suck on that.

How’s the vomit medicine tasting?

 

When I’m done scheduling I can, for once, stop

feeling like there are ants crawling all over my body.

Stop hearing

do, work, act, be better, do better, run faster for God’s sake move your lazy ass.

 

I can quiet their godawful whispers

and irritatingly silky smooth voices

that set my teeth on edge. I can believe I will

 

make it one more day, one more week, one more month,

one more quarter, one more semester, one more year.

 

Mr. Dalí, in your professional opinion, do you think I will?

 

Sincerely,

A Girl Racing Time,

Looking for some Advice