50 Days of Waiting: A Poetic Journey Through Time, Longing, and Resilience #50Days

50 Days

You wake in the crush of numbers,
a line of one, of two, of fifty,
strung tight like a rosary looped too tight—
not on faith, but on counting down,
on dust motes in light, dancing only
for the shadows they shed,
for the half-life of things waiting, just waiting.

You begin on day one, then lose it to day four,
maybe day nine, maybe thirty,
or was it seventeen? These days are scaffolds
invisible, holding up moments like planks
of rotted wood creaking with ghosts.
You step on one, just one—
is it Wednesday or Thursday?—
and time folds you in its dusty wings,
an accordion in the hands of a child.

You, oh you, lost in the train whistle,
waiting for trains that come late,
a clock that strikes twelve or twenty-five.
Each day a soft sandpaper,
grinding your words into powder,
until the phrase is nothing but whispers,
falling through gaps like starlight
sliced by blinds half-drawn—
are you counting or just waiting?

But by day twenty-five you stand at the brink,
a cold river pooling at your feet,
you could sink, dissolve into the murmur of currents,
but you hold—aching grip on the spiral,
fingers bloodied by the iron rail.
And what is there to see at the edge?
The opposite shore a mirror cracked
by one thousand days in waiting,
all stacked in the cogs of your mind.

Days turn into strangers, then comrades,
their footsteps echo in hollow staircases,
smelling faintly of burnt toast and midnight,
of things forgotten and half-remembered,
pressed flat by passing time,
until they stick like leaves to the gutter of thought.
One, five, ten, forty—fifty.
And there you are, at the threshold,
not an ending, just a pause,

and so you write on, speak on,
like an ancient scribe lost in the bones of papyrus,
making marks that are barely there,
leaving letters that no one can read
and words that spill over like water,
shadows cast by pages upon pages,
counting down, counting up—
what was it, the point?

#50Days #PoetryCommunity #WaitingAndLonging #AbstractPoetry #EmotionalJourney #TimeAndMemory #Verse #ExistentialWriting #CountingTheDays #PoeticReflection #ArtOfWaiting