Thankful for Time

I sat down across from Time over a cup of tea this morning.

Time stared and I sipped.

I held silently in the garden of eye-contact where Time seemed to stand still.

But I could hear Time breathe.

My heart rushed with memories. The cream swirled and the leaves told their story.

Time was passionately purposeful in the present and massively haunting with its' past. 

Time had etched its' distance into the space between my loved ones and rendered them strangers.

Time took a life recently in what felt like a handful of twisted minutes and left me gasping for a few more seconds.

Time sliced its' teeth into unspoken words and concealed pain. It shattered into slivers of broken; Shards of promises betrayed that are still too sharp to pick up with flesh. So I don't, for fear that I'll bleed to death.

Lost in its' haunting, Time unknowingly ignited a thought and my mind leapt. 

The tea spilled and steam rose.

Despite the wild anarchy that Time viciously splashed across the face of the last 36-calendar pages, I was presently grateful for every minute that Time had spilled out! I looked Time in the face and turned the haunt around. I reminded Time that no matter where he is, or who he's with, he's still perfectly confined within the boundaries of a cycle of 24... neither bending nor breaking. No matter how insanely his seconds beat against their minutes, they remain enslaved to the hours and days and years that have been carefully assigned to them. 

Time leaned back into his seat.

I invited him to share a new cup of tea, brewed freshly from Thankful's leaves. 

Silence.

The tea kettle whistled gently and then Thankfulness simply sauntered up to the table and kindly placed her hand on Time's shoulder.

I smiled. I might have even giggled.

And Time trembled.