Time is always passing by. The earth will always turn, the sun will always set, and our clocks will always tick. In some minds, we will never have enough. To accomplish everything we wish, see everything we want, we would need eternities worth of time. In other minds, we will always have too much. Too many boring days, too many tragedies witnessed, we need half as much time to appreciate it. But it is how you choose to look at time that will help you cope with it. Time Spotlight wishes to share just a glimpse of how the members of the Literary Arts Program feel about time. We hope you may sacrifice some of your own in order to enjoy these pieces!

Banner Image by Katelyn Topshee

The Mental Wall of Time
​By Tara Fitzgerald

Timeless Moments
​By Olivia Ersil
Strange, the passage of time.
With the right people and moments,
Minutes and hours pass by seemingly in an instant.
But it can also drag on.
It's relentless,
Unstoppable.
The thing about time is that no matter how much you want to stop it,
It'll never be so.
It will always continue,
The seconds painfully ticking by,
Stuck forever in limbo.
​Yet somehow the illusion has been created that time's passing,
And yet not passing all at once.
Everything has stopped right now.
Drives and walks through the city can prove
That the world seems to have stopped spinning on its axis all together.
The days are short, the weeks are long,
Yet I still can't believe it every time another month passes.
The world has stopped,
Almost everything has stopped.
And though it may seem like it,
Time has not stopped.
It will forever march forth,
Dooming us all to an eternal fate.
Warm cups of tea
On dark, thundering nights.

Flannel blankets holding you tight,
Comforting you.

A plaid shield protecting you
From angry words
And angry weather.

Light tones of red and orange
Shine from an old candle,
Casting artful shadows on your wall.

The quiet pattering of rain
Mixes with the creams of your old house.
And these timeless moments 
​
Continue playing at the back of your mind,
Like the shadows on your wall.
Repeating,
And repeating.

Deadlines
By Thomas Starzomski

Deadlines. Every project has one. You have to submit your work before it’s deemed late. These deadlines are defined. You can expect them. You know when it’s over. Some things have deadlines that aren’t as defined. Like, for example, a human life. A human life has a deadline, but we don’t exactly know when it is. We can calculate an average deadline, but an average isn’t exactly a defined date. And even if we can average a year, that doesn’t tell us our deadline to a date, to an hour, even to a minute. Those deadlines are different for everyone. The reaper decides your deadline. Be nice to him. Because if you aren’t, your deadline may come sooner than you had hoped.

Untitled 
By Kara Brulotte 

​Sometimes I think about life, and how it’s short and so full it bursts at the seams
Time never ends, but our time is fleeting
We don’t have time for anything,
that means nothing 
We read poetry and the stars
We make shitty art
but isn’t that what it’s all about 
We wonder for the future
We wonder about what makes our hearts beat
We wonder about the storms in our mind 
About the thing that is purpose and the thing that is desire 
I read books with people like me and like anybody
I ride the bus
I wonder if we mean something,
in the long run
I wonder if she makes my heart beat 
Or if that’s the work of arteries and muscle, the simple contraction and expansion of an organ
Or maybe a bit of both
What makes us human 
What makes us worth something 
To others or to ourselves
Photo by Logan Webster

It's About Time
​By Jenna Mihalchan

I have a list. A bucket list. So many things I plan to do jotted down. As the years go by, my list gets bigger and there is scarcely a thing checked off. I have the ability to make my list a reality. But I don’t. I let the time pass me. I walk around expecting my dreams to happen for me. It’s about time I realized if I want something, I have to be the one to pursue it. I can’t wait around all my life waiting for something to happen. Because it won’t. I have to make it happen. ​

Untitled 
By Jocelyn Van Hees

“A full smile keeps your soul young.”

That’s what Grandma said to me as she observed me absentmindedly frowning into my book while sitting outside on the porch one bright afternoon. “That’s just the way my face looks, Grandma.” 
“No, you’re just lazy.” 
I purposely deepened my frown to match Grandma’s face of discontent. She swatted me on the shoulder lightly and sat next to me on the green armchair. “I was the beauty of my time. The boys lost all sense of reason when I walked down the street.”
I rolled my eyes, and cringed internally at the image of my grandma being flirtatious. She continued, leaning closer as if we were scheming a plot. 
“It was my smile that did it, knocked the socks right off of them. The poor fellas didn’t stand a chance as my smile went straight into their hearts.” I grimaced, Grandma immediately took notice of the look and yelled, “Stop! Don’t be afraid to smile! The greatest honour of ageing are the lines on my face. My wrinkly, baggy skin carries all of my favourite memories and adventures. It tells the entire world that I have a beautiful soul. If I could do it all again, I would smile more. Then, I would have a beautiful young soul.” 

Stop Time
By Brynn Duggan

March 28th
By Ella Pegan
Time ticks by
A constant metronome reminder 
Of all the things we have to do
Always looking forward
To plan what we’ll do next
Or looking back
To pick apart things we’ve already done
We need to remember to look down sometimes,
At the earth beneath our feet
Supporting us along our path, 
We need to look back
To see how far we’ve come
Look forward to see how far we’ll go
But we don't need to stress
What's done is done, 
What will happen, will happen
So often in this
Constantly changing world 
We forget to breathe
So breathe
You are alive
You have survived every single bad day of your life
Don't tell me that isn’t amazing
Look at yourself
Making others lives better by existing,
Pushing through all the bad, to get to the good, because the good will come.
Look up at the sky,
Whether it’s a pale blue, smeared with colors, or a dark canvas splattered with stars,
Look outside at nature- birds chirping, geese, squawking, trees rustling, 
No matter how crazy the world is, natures still beautiful
Look at the people coming together across the world in social solidarity,
At everyone who is helping in any way they can
Look for the silver linings
Close your eyes
Look at the dark, stand still for a moment, 
And know that everything will be okay.
Inhale, feel the air fill up your lungs,
And breathe out, slowly, steadily. 
This is how we stop time
​We breathe.
What if every day from now on was March 28th? Each twenty four hours, we started fresh. Brand new dawn, same stale day!
Think about it. We wouldn’t lose the school year. We wouldn’t lose our break. We wouldn’t lose all the important dates, all the things we look forward to.
Think about it. We could go ice skating in Summer. We could wear ugly scarves and thick sweaters in Spring. We could pick flowers in Fall and eat ice cream in Winter.
Think about it. We could pause the panic. Straighten the spiral. We could deal with each day as it comes, and they’ll only come when we say so.
Think about it. We could live for years off of March 28th.
-
Okay, so it’s not a great plan. 
Not even a good one.
But it’s better than what’s happening.
Right?

yet another untitled poem about the pandemic
By Rebecca Kempe

this is the kind of poem you write when you don’t know what to write anymore/when hours feel like days and days feel like weeks and weeks feel like months/because you’re terrified/because everyone is terrified and unsure of tomorrow/so you stay home/and you watch the news, the news that has been on for the last few hours, the news that will be on 24/7, because knowledge is power/and/information saves lives/except, nothing has changed, and people are still dying, and what’s the point of checking if you’re stuck at home anyway/because in this case knowledge is anxiety/and you’re anxious/and more anxious/and more anxious

​this is the kind of poem you write when you don’t know what to say anymore/when when everything is surreal, when all the stability you have come to love has shattered/when you’ve been checking obsessively to see how many have died today/how many got sick today/how many might not survive today/and you don’t know/and you don’t know

this is the kind of poem you write when you don’t know what tomorrow will look like/when all you can do is make grim armchair predictions/because you can’t see through to next week/because everything is worse/so much worse/than anyone thought it would be/when it’s too hard to think to next year/or next month/or next week/because how dare you think about the future when the present is so uncertain? how dare you check out from what’s happening around you? how dare you have hope when your loved ones could die next week? how dare you?/while the city is shutdown/ when no official knows what the right call is/because there is no right call

this is the kind of poem you write when you hope it’ll be over in three weeks/but it might be three months/or a year/or worse

You know that one conversation that's like...
By Wesley Massey

“Honestly, I’ve never felt less of a motivation to do something.”
“Really!?” 
“Yeah.”
“So you’re just not gonna do it then?”
“Yuh-huh.”
“But all that time spent working on the details, all that energy! You—”
“Don’t care. It’s over. I don’t have the motivation now, so it will never come.”
“Oh, ok.”
“Yep.” 
“Huh.”
“What?” 
“What? What do you mean ‘what’?” 
“What was that ‘huh’ that you just did?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well was it a question ‘huh?’ or was it sort of more of an acknowledgement ‘huh’?
“I’m gonna be completely honest with you, I have no clue what you’re off about.”
“Well did you mean like ‘huh, I wonder why he’d do that’ or ‘huh, that piece of information lines up in my brain with past knowledge I have of this gentleman’ like it’s a pretty straightforward question—”
“Well I guess I just mean ‘huh I suppose this conversation is over and there’s no more need to continue it’, alright?”
​“Oh I see.”
“You do.”

Slowing Down
By Heidi Elder

She watches anxiously over his shoulder as he pounds away at his keyboard. She watches for as long as she can before placing a reassuring hand on his arm. “Take your time.”
He shoves her off and whips around to face her, exhaustion and anger rimming his eyes. “Take my time? Take my time! What do you think anyone gains from me doing a thing like that?!”
“Arthur…”
“If I take my time and someone dies, that’s on me. People’s lives aren’t exactly dangling from your fingertips, are they Marcy?”
The sympathy vanishes from her expression and her mouth draws into a straight line. “You’re right; I’m useless when it comes to these sorts of things. I don’t know anything about what you’re going through.” Her words are like ice. “It’s not like I’ve ever had anyone die on me before or anything.”
Instead of stomping out of the room, she turns away from him quietly and leaves, closing the door softly behind her. There’s only a moment of silence before there’s a primal yell from inside Arthur’s study and the sound of books falling to the floor. Her hand still clutches the doorknob as she breathes heavily, trying to keep the sobs racking her body as silent as her exit.

Untitled
By Erin Frank

Untitled
By Oonagh Calkin
Slowly passing by 
It seems to be never ending 
​But we’re running out

The days blur and the weeks disappear
Staring at my walls and wandering aimlessly
Back and forth back and forth
Up and down up and down
I miss when the hours I spent meant something

Spotlight 
By Charlotte Rasmussen

I watch as the last few grains of sand fall to the bottom of the hourglass, marking the end of the hour. My lessons are now done for the day, so I wait, watching the grains slowly slip through the thin middle of the old timer. I could stop the timer if I really wanted to, but it would do nothing to stop time. One day will continue to turn into the next, hours draining away with no one to keep track of them. Time is untouchable and will continue to pass by till the end. So there is no point in touching the hourglass, for no matter what I do, time will not stand still. Time waits for no man.

Late Night Phone Calls
​By Emily Ewing

Time, Thyme
​By Ella Wade
late night phone calls
is when time stands completely still.
the ticks and the tocks from the clock stop
And the whole world freezes.
You laugh or cry,
And let the hours pass by.
it’s just you and them.
It’s perfect. It’s beautiful.
It’s timeless.

​
There once was a man who had lots of time,
so he spent his days wasting thyme. 
He’d go to all the grocery stores in town,
and rip it off the shelves.
There wasn’t a bag, bottle, or jar,
because the man put them in his car. 
And at the end of every day,
the man would drive away.
He’d throw the thyme of cliffs,
and flush it down the drain.
He’d rip it out of the ground,
and shoot it into space.
No one really knows why, 
He spent so much time killing thyme.
But we do know one thing for sure,
That guy was a selfish jerk.  
Now we have no thyme.

​

Time
By Kate-Lynn McGowan

Time is Futile When You're Alone
​By Emma Breton
Slowly the sand trickles down
The inside of the golden hourglass 
Tell me, oh Mighty Time,
Wherever have you gone?

Have you left us all to suffer
Powerless at your hand?
Will you laugh when you see us
Struggling against our invisible bonds?

Ticking quietly, the clock on the wall
Pulsing against its frame
Tell me, oh Mighty Time,
Wherever have you gone?

Are you watching us
From afar in your magnificent castle
Do you even care
How we try pushing our restraints as far as they’ll go?

Second by second, the digital watch glares
Its strange yellow light blazing
Tell me, oh Mighty Time,
Wherever have you gone?

I know you think we don’t understand
But I realize how you’ve orchestrated all this
Every single second and every wasted hour
You are the one pulling at the strings. 

The hourglass, the clock, the watch
All instruments of your creation
Bent on destroying us all
From within our minds. 

You say these instruments help us
But I know they only guilt us
They make us feel sorry, terrible about our lives
And they make us think we’re useless. 

To everyone that’s reading this;
You are not useless
You are loved, cared for, unique, and amazing
So don’t let Time destroy your conscience. 

You are not bound by anything He says
You have a mind and can make your own decisions
Do not let Him tempt you
Do not let Him control you. 

So next time you look at your watch, a clock, or even your phone
Remember; you are not useless,
You are in control,
You do not need to do anything to please Time. 

​
time is futile when you’re alone
you begin to crave it, that moment when the house is empty and the only light is a single ray of sun illuminating the blank walls of your kitchen.
when the clock keeps ticking but the minutes don’t pass.
an hour goes by and you’re still sitting on the cold kitchen floor
wondering how a flower can still bloom while the world is frozen in place.

​

Photo by Galadriel Bond