My hands overlap, pointing north: a silent prayer, a quiet reminder that the time is up.
The sofa groans as a man vacates his seat; it is time for him to leave.
A while later, the sofa creaks again: the man’s seat now filled by a woman.
This is the daily routine.
One replaces the other; the coming and the going, much like the ebb and flow of water.
The doctor sits and listens, he listens to worries and queries alike.
He’s like a vigilant policeman, standing in the middle of an intersection, guiding the traffic. But it isn’t cars that honk at him, its thoughts that won’t rest and keep getting louder and louder.
I watch the doctor every day.
I watch him treat with words and compassion.
I watch him as he journeys through the lives and minds of his patients.
They come with all sorts of problems; some of them close to breaking, but they come nonetheless because they haven’t stopped believing.
In this place, time stands still even as my hands turn and I chime the hours away.
And the walls of this room, they echo with the countless voices.
I’m not human, so I don’t know what its like to hurt.
But I do know what it’s like to be broken.
I know the fear of not knowing if whats broken can be fixed again.
I’m not human but…
If my hand could hold another, I’d hold the hand of the person who’s lost their way.
If I could speak, I’d tell them it’s okay. It’s okay to stumble.
I’d say this is the first step to a better tomorrow.
I’d tell them that the breaking is swift and the mending slow.
I see them as they come, I see them as they go.
And I know they see me too.
They steal glances at me from time to time.
And I wonder what I remind them of,
The time that is lost,
Or the time that is yet to come?
