3,600 (prose)

            it’s quieter outside than in here.

then, tick, tick, tick.

i get to class thirteen minutes early. 

watching the door—tick, tick, tick. eleven minutes go by every time. 

you show up—black coat, blue scarf. always the same. two forty-three.

you’re looking at a laptop, i’m looking at you. you glance up, i glance down.

tick, tick, tick. class starts. tick, tick, tick.

the pages of notebooks, the click-clacks of keyboards…the tick, tick, tick of the clock, of your watch. they echo in the room, down the hall, to the lawn.

unlike my words, better kept in my thoughts.

three desks away, three miles apart. my heart flutters at your voice, flatlines when you laugh. tick, tick, tick. my breaths are sporadic, erratic.

sometimes it’s boring, sometimes it’s not. today, all i can hear is the clock. the tick, tick, tick of seconds going past. three-thousand six-hundred seconds. sixty minutes. one hour.

tick, tick, tick.

one hour, three times a week. ten-thousand eight-hundred seconds of you.

tick, tick, tick.

you’re engrossed in the lecture, i’m engrossed in you. someone asks me for notes. i haven’t taken any. tick, tick, tick…

i hold on to each second, each tick of the clock like a taste of you. the hand keeps on spinning, the cycle keeps going. it’s too fast, it’s always too fast.

tick, tick, tick. we make eye contact four times in three minutes. tick, tick tick. i hold your gaze for half a second. i’m the one who always turns away. silence—too loud, too soft.

it’s three thirty-three. i wonder if the way you look at me is how you see the world. tick, tick, tick.

three thirty-five. sometimes we go a minute or two over. today is not one of those times.

i’m packing up, we’re all packing up. except for you—you’re always too busy with others.

my bag is zipped, i'm grasping at straws. tick, tick, tick.

i give in. the other girl gives me a smirk. she knows she’s won. she always wins.

i glance back one more time. you’re meeting my eyes.

and then you look away. tick, tick, tick.

later that night, i playback every minute. sixty of them, on continous rewind. the silence drives me mad, almost like your laugh.

in the quiet, i can still hear it all.

the keyboards, the chalk, your voice, your walk. and the tick, tick, tick of the clock.