He came by at dusk,
Stealthy like a cat,
Wily like a minx,
Deliberate like a panther,
And stole.
In a moment that dusk turned to darkness,
That darkness diffused to light,
And it was time to retrace paths again.
Those few moments of solitude,
Turning into core memories of freedom,
Original thought,
Of the abstract dance of music
The rhythmic sound of movement,
And the silent conception of creation,
Were forever gone.
Like a badly edited video,
Morphing from one slide to another
Without apparent rhythm, but adherent noise.
He came in many forms,
As beloved nostalgic reruns,
As witty banter,
As exchange of information without substance,
As alter life scenarios lived through machines,
And he took,
Subtle, yet sure; quiet yet with loud aftermaths.
The mind stretched itself longingly,
Away from the mundane,
The routine,
The muscle memory,
The preset patterns of a defined path.
Painful stretches, screaming for a release,
Loud cries of the creaky engine,
Dried up like a raisin, with overuse.
And this particular pain was his call,
Almost like a language of suppressed thoughts,
And he never disappointed the disappointed,
Only wearied the weary.
He's started coming by at dawn now,
And At intimate moments,
Distracting at ablutions,
Wedging between serendipitous strangers on a train,
Casting a shadow on loved ones at meals,
An almost physical barrier between the reader's hand and the now dusty books.
And he grows bolder with every return,
Steals but only the most precious moments,
The time thief.
