The Legitimate Late Paper

I’m running fast in my flip flops

Down the sidewalk

My ears are blocking out the sound

Of all the raindrops -

The drums are beating, instead

Tick tock, tick tock,

Synchronized with mental metronomes:

My multiple alarm clocks.

I’m reaching the line of the dead

My limbs are zombie as I approach

Facts swirl in my head

My eyes are glossy with reproach

No sleep, no food, but my heart still pounds

And even more pressure mounts

As I trudge up this hill,

Commanding my emotions to please! sit still.

But

Suddenly, my pace of haste

Digs its heels in the ground,

The fiery friction beneath my feet

Slows me to a halt-

Suddenly, I'm witness

To a beautiful assault:

Rays searing raindrops

With the sharpest blade of radiance

Making them bleed Roy G Biv

Drip drop, drip drop

On this monotone body cadence -

Pores of my sleepless skin

Wake with revived color

This absorption is a win

Though tardiness is marked as sin

Even the leaflets that I grasp

Are pleased at my lively clasp

And my lungs praise the breaths I take

Cooling my heart's stressed shake.

Then I break my usual tense stride

And walk calmly, with peculiar pride -

It is twenty minutes past four

But it doesn't matter anymore

Because I just got to delve

Into a phenomenon I adore.