At three in the morning

At three in the morning,

my neighbor's timer goes off,

a beeping, a warning,

cutting through the soft

dark of my waiting.

Someone is measuring time,

decided in advance what's creating

the boundary, the chime.

They know when to stop.

They set the dial.

They come back when they pop

the food in, all the while

measuring out their life

in intervals, in plans,

in the certainty and strife

of knowing where you stand.

And I'm here, no timer,

no number assigned,

no bell to get slimmer,

just waiting, undefined.

The beeping stops.

The silence comes back.

But something's inside my stops—

the realization of what I lack.

Other people are timing.

I'm just sitting in space.

Other people are climbing

toward an endpoint, a place.

And I'm just waiting,

not measuring anything,

not calculating,

not listening to a ring

that says it's over,

that the time has come due.

I'm just here, waiting over,

not knowing what to do.