clock birdmad red LED face in the dark like baleful eyes reminds me in unsubtle ways every morning that i'm not getting any younger and by it's morning buzzing that there's no rest for the damned 030107 ... pilgrim I am Awakened Before the First Rays Lighten The Eastern Edge of The Sky. The Dogs Bark Early Wishing to Be Walked Before the Traffic Begins to Stir. These Days It is Crisp and Cold Venus Rises Slowly Before the Sun. Lilith The Larger of the Two Strains at the Leash Checking the P-Mail. Chemical Messeges Left By Others That Have Passed Since We Last came this Way Clock? I Don't Need No Stinking Clock! The Hounds of Hell Call Me Up Each Day. 030107 ... nom 7_oh_clock! 051009 ... tender_square “when i was talking to my dad, he said that becky and sean got divorced.” “wait—what? like they’re not in the process of getting divorced, they’re already divorced?” “yeah, they just finalized the paperwork. it took about two months,” he said. they sat on the couch in their separate corners absorbing the news. “i never thought it would’ve been them,” she said. “i had no idea they were having problems,” which was such a presumptuous thing to say, she realized. as though anyone had any insight into anybody else’s relationship, that they could see beyond closed doors and know what passed between two people. “well, statistically it had to be one of them.” he had four step-siblings, all in various stages of matrimony, some as long as twenty years, some as early as six years. “but i don’t know that i expected it to be them either.” “i don’t know that i expected it to happen to any of them, really,” she confessed. becky and sean had been married for fifteen years, they had three kids. and she remembered when she was with her first husband, learning that another couple they’d known, who had also gone through the same immigration process, were separating—they had only been married two years. the news had unsettled her, made her hold her husband that much tighter when they embraced because she wordlessly worried that the same fate could befall them if she wasn’t careful—no union was immune to disintegration. “i thought i saw some tension between them at our wedding,” he admitted. “when?” “at the rehearsal dinner.” their wedding was nearly six years ago. peering into the past to pinpoint where the trouble began was a fool’s errand. it seemed to her that love could slowly erode, the years and their hot waters taking such small increments that a couple didn’t realize what had been lost until they had reached irreversibility. “i just feel bad for their kids,” he was remembering his own childhood. “it took my parents two years to have their divorce finalized.” she knew his parents had split when he and his siblings were eight, but had no idea the fracture had happened earlier than that. “why did it take so long?” “child-custody arrangements.” he and his brother and sister spent weekends and summers with their dad, lived full-time with their mom. “did your mom ever say what the reason for their divorce was?” his mother had never remarried, while his father did. she had always wanted to ask her what motivated it, but didn’t feel it was her place to know. and it was too late to have the conversation now that she was gone. “they didn’t get along. my mom didn’t want a life resigned to the suburbs. she had already gotten her masters in psychology by then. all my dad wanted was to have a steady and happy family.” at that moment she realized how alike she was to her mother-in-law, independent and defiant to the core, constantly seeking professional accomplishments and challenges. she knew her husband’s demeanor was much like her father’s, quiet and withdrawn, but she hadn’t previously considered the ways that she was like her husband’s mother, how we pick partners most like our parents and recreate the same circumstances at a generation removed. he turned to her, “what are you thinking?” “oh,” she couldn’t say what she had discovered. “just that the hockey game is starting later than i thought it would and i don’t know that i have the energy to watch it together anymore.” the tv had been flickering through the images of men speeding on skates chasing after an elusive puck, the sound muted while they spoke of endings. “oh,” he said. “okay.” “i’ll watch with you until the end of the first period,” she said. she slid her body across the couch and wrapped her arms around him, resting her head against his chest. there were three minutes remaining on the clock. 220123 ... raze i had some words for mine tonight. there were more of them than i thought i had inside me, and none were very kind. it was really time i was talking to, but just try and find a face you can tell about your troubles when you're swearing at something that can't be seen. just you try. 240124 what's it to you? who go blather from