Three Minutes, Fifty-Four Seconds

Strings gentle begin as I lay with closed eyes,
Seeing twenty years unfold in three minutes fifty four seconds,
Memories of a youth of spoils come back to me,
Reminding me of the difficulties I posed to the deaf and dumb;
Four silent years marked me out as a mute boy,
The other sixteen have been spent making up for lost time,
Except when the Big Man took his unnecessary leave,
All went quiet then, bar the rain drops,
Rolling down my bedroom window like tears on trembling cheeks,
As I gazed blankly away;
The soundtrack to anything becomes a song for me,
Things clear when a crescendo begins its slow ascent,
Especially the mistakes made in departments supposedly superior to the standard;
The yells that leave my mouth in anger are just like the Big Man’s,
He bubbles beneath my surface, holding a grip from his grave,
It contorts my face and raises my swearing,
Bringing fear to my brothers’ eyes, his sons’ eyes,
A leader exists only in the past;
Even though my lids are shut, this all plays like a reel in a cinema,
Never a dull moment, only the pictures and the music,
The happy times play their part and I see for the first time my own face light up,
While in real time, a solitary drop escapes through a crack in my lashes,
As never before did I notice the emotions that are visible in my expressions,
My face is like a book of poetry,
Each wrinkle containing all the joy I never thought would leave,
The glow flickering in my eyes really believing this;
The same score, the same three minutes fifty four seconds,
Represents everything I have ever done, happy or sad, good and bad,
The excited laughs and the tortured empty stares fit into this one piece,
The losses, the gains, the things that just remain, resolute in their permanence,
Because those three minutes fifty four seconds play in repeat in my mind.