The Retroverse

By Anoushka Sinha

(Where “soon" is actually “back when")

Reverse the clocks,

Did it reverse the time?

Or did it compel you to suffer in that moment once more.

Begged you to inch back the hands of your father's watch once more.

Only for you to remember: the door you came in from is now closed.

And another opens ahead; out into the paradox of gates and passageways.

They're the portals to the future of mankind.

Jump too fast ahead,

And you've missed a few steps.

How does it feel to be lost?

To forget the ability to stand when all sit.

You go back a few steps retrace your way back,

Only to be met with wood.

You passed another door in the hopes of jumping through to another.

You look at your watch,

The time feels same, the hours still tick in your father's name.

But you've passed your father,

You've long forgotten the rules of the game.

You need him to remind you,

You need him to guide you.

You turn the dial,

The hour hand unwinds.

Hours fall backwards,

But not so much the life.

You're still in the same space,

In that corridor leading to your next door.

But you keep dialling back,

And rot away with that clock.

Starve, till you've dwelled in those old weary hours again.

And you've done so, so proudly.

So eagerly.

Hoping to see another detail make a Crack in the wood.

And you keep dialling and dialling back,

Till there's no more turns left in that old metal thing.

10:10 am.

That's where it stopped.

You've spun it back 17 years,

All the way to that point where this paradox began.

Where you began.

That's the furthest this watch will go back for now,

So, take a breather and sit down.

The corridor has enough to offer, look around.

Are you back?

Is he there?

Can you feel the warmth of your mother's bosom as she feeds you for the first time?

Is it all there, in front of your eyes?

Tell me, is it there?

You've found your destination, 

but is it your preferred solution?

You've cried a lot, remembered a lot,

But it's not here, does it wreck your mind?

You dwelled in that godawful past for so long,

That you forgot to erase first before redrawing the same line.

You remade the same mistakes,

As you had in that lifetime.

Believed the same lies all over again,

Knowing one day you'll again get back to that life.

But ask yourself, will you really?

Or is it just another paradox in your mind?

I mean, look around you-

You've reversed the clocks, sure,

But did it truly reverse the time?

By Anoushka Sinha