This is a very thought provoking poem. I can't help to think that the character in this poem is having a bad dream or just feeling lost in the everyday norm. This is a great poem because it requires multiple reads.

I totally get this, I think. Everything is going by so quickly, you try to stop and breathe but the stress is overwhelming.

I like the Tick. It makes me think of a heartbeat rather than time. You need to slow down, but can't seem to and everything is whirling around you.

The end makes me think these are thoughts going though your head and you keep telling yourself to calm down but can't. I could be way off with all of that, but that's what I got out of it (:

I also agree with believing the tick symbolized a heartbeat of ever faster beating proportions, and I believe this was all probably an inner-dialogue in your head. I liked how you included the ticking, as to me anyway, it added not pleonasm to the piece, but almost an hyperbole effect. I believe this more so because of the inclusion of a single "tock" - showing your heart, anyway, was beating quite fast after initially being told to calm down. The fact also it wasn't included in quotations to me shows it was an experience that occurred outside of the realm of your mind.

I took from reading and interpreting this writing that you were trying to rationalize with perhaps your irrational self in a moment of non-clairvoyance, through the words of someone else close to you (perhaps a parent or significant other, and hence why the inner dialogue was in quotations which evoked personal thoughts - but not necessarily your personal thoughts).

The impromptu lack of clarity (in whatever this situation was about) that caused your emotions to spike, sort of made you keel over and try to rationalize by adhering to their words and advice, and then, I think at the very end there's a rather startling realization. This person, the person (parent, significant other, whoever) who is telling you to calm down and not be by trying to change the emotional outcome of the situation... is actually, you, whether or not you can help it. As you wrote at the end - you are yourself, which is sort of a sad realization to me, that you are the irrational person they're trying to hide from the rest of the world.

I think the beauty (and frustration) of your writing is how ambiguous you let it be. On one hand, it's interesting as everyone will form a different interpretation, but on the other hand, it's frustrating because sometimes, I want to know what *you* were trying to accomplish writing this. What exactly were you thinking? I don't know, myself, and as you can see there's so far three different hypothesis regarding the context.

I know from speaking to you back and forth via messaging you have impeccable grammar and syntax, so I'll chalk up your writing style similar to E. E. Cummings and ignore the various grammar mistakes, assuming they were intentional. This also makes me wonder why you write this way! As for example, there's many instances of lower case "i"s in this writing, but in this sentence:

"What am i going to do? Where am I going? wonder ... "

There's one instance, and the only instance, of a capital I, which makes me ponder its significance, or whether it was random fluke.

4/5.

Whoops, double posted somehow.

Feel free to erase this one!