Tonight's Poet Corner: Five Minutes

Five Minutes
by Belinda Roddie

My stopwatch exploded;
tiny fragments,
shrapnel,
clogged my vision, and now
I can't see anything else but
smears of color instead of
faces, and places, and things, and scenes.

It was only five minutes ago
that I felt normal, but now
the sadness drips off the tongue like
dew off a clichéd flower petal,
and no amount of
sun will bring light to me.
Not now.
Not ever
in the persistent
present.