When was the last time you lived in a moment? Felt the warmth of the sun, and it caused you no torment? And when you last felt your beloved’s tender touch, Did you catch it, or not, how they loved you so much? Twelve minutes to go — my whole life flashes by. My dignity withers, though I try not to cry. I swallow the thought of the blade’s lethal gleam. What a life….what an outcome…what a harrowing dream. How I long for the mornings I so wasted away, Thinking nothing at all of the shape of the day. To lie in the grass, count the clouds drifting by, Smell the flowery air in the balmy July. I miss all the moments I’d taken for granted— When my dog licked my cheeks while it playfully panted. A shared cup of coffee. A quick call from a friend. The comfort of things that I thought had no end. How my soul yearns to be in those places again, To be childishly free, pluck a daisy, or ten… Eat berries, laugh hard at my family’s rants… My parents, my siblings, my uncles, my aunts… To wander with nowhere important to be, Collecting smooth stones by the edge of the sea. To love every minute, too small to remember, Before every season froze into December. To hear one more story my grandfather told, Or sit in the kitchen while supper grew cold. I think of the evenings I wished would pass by, Now I’m sitting and begging: “My God, give me time.”