Maybe we're taller in other dimensions

I’ve been thinking a lot

About what time truly means.

Temporality governs our existence

And yet someone made it up

The sun went up and down

The moon did the same,

And eventually someone

Called it twenty four hours,

And we believed every word

Like how my buddy named his dog

Drexel then grew up and went to Purdue

Or that my fish was named Blaze

Even though it lived underwater.

The same goes for the word “always”

We use it as a measure of infinity

Believing that the unknown of tomorrow

Can be quantified today,

But as long as there’s time

Always will be tangible

and disappointingly finite.

And as long as there’s time,

We’ll measure it in all the funny ways

We usually do.

Like how fourty-nine seconds is longer 

When it’s filling up a cup of coffee 

And shorter when I’m drinking it,

The aroma twisting counter clockwise. 

It hasn’t cooled long enough to drink

Until it’s too cold and the bitter warmth

Washes away my morning breath

With a smoky chocolate revival.

The way we can’t dictate the Sun’s

Timings, our complementary rotations

Built far before human hands. That is,

Unless we want more sunlight

In the evenings, because the 9-5

Is much longer in the winter,

Greeting the moon in the morning

And watching it set through glass.

Some nights are measured 

By bathroom breaks,

Three beers of piss 

every hour.

When I was a kid naps felt like a waste

Of daylight, sunlight peeking

Though my blinds, amplifying the young

Voices of friends playing outside,

And they still do

But I don’t have to try to fall asleep anymore.

I remember you in weekends,

Fogged windows in parking lots

Tied games of moon-roof tic-tac-toe

And minutes with PnB Rock.

I remember you in weekends,

On July 14 and November 27,

And all the other holidays we made up

Because Neruda was right.

We also think it’s better to use the fifteen 

Second ad to find a new video 

Rather than to wait

For what we actually wanted.

Last June the Earth rotated slightly

Faster. 

1.59 milliseconds to be exact.

The days of twenty four hours

Or eighty six thousand seconds

Are over. And what of time now? 

Regardless, “always” just got a little bit 

shorter.

About the Author

Ryan Hiemenz is a senior Media and Communications major with a concentration in Multimedia Publishing and a minor in Creative Writing. Currently, he is a CTLM fellow on the communications team, the Layout Manager for The Compass, the Editor-in-Chief of Arcadia University’s literary magazine Quiddity, and the Co-Editor-in-Chief for Loco Mag, a Philadelphia lifestyle and culture magazine. Ryan enjoys spending his free time reading, writing poetry, and hyper fixating on specific film directors until he’s watched everything in their filmography.