Seasons

i hang my wishes like prayers
on the doorknob, raise the knocker and
lift it again. pieces of paper flutter
where keys are supposed to be, where shreds
of life have been torn to pieces, and the
autumn leaves are the only indicator
of seasons having gone by as i was dreaming,
whole cycles that turn and spill their bounty
as i run desperately on my hamster wheel.
lost time, lost sense of place
pounding at heaven’s gate and begging it all
to make sense again, to bring
me back to when it was summer and i was
still searching, when i was a little girl and
knew all the reasons for God to exist. that very
same sense, the inexplicable wonder, only a
dull memory that sits, brushed at the back
of a closet, kept in storage for the day
to summon again that well-kept coat. i
remember thinking of it as letters to God,
and they would come true. now in office
i send emails and hope they are read too. if only
it could be tuned again, like a piano
or a watch to keep time to life’s fragile drum
as the shuffling calendar inches through days past
and the ones left to come.

Kristine Chng works in communications in Singapore. She has a minor in creative writing from Nanyang Technological University.