#The Clockmaker and the Watches of Leaving

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pearl vault
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In the oldest part of the city,
the clockmaker bent across crooked stone.
Cold clockwork clicked through cold copper.
Cogs clacked beneath his cracked hands.

Not to count down death...
But for when life cleaves forever
into before
and after.

A first kiss they could not trust, could not trust.
A mother’s final breath already breaking in the bone of thought.
The sentence that unmade a marriage before it began speaking itself.
The phone call at 2 a.m. already forming in the throat of night.

No one told them when.
Only that it would come.

So they learned to listen.

Click through silence.
Click through breath.
Click through bone and breath and bone again

Every sunset became a warning.
Every ringing phone became a warning.
Every beautiful stranger became a warning.
Every beautiful thing became a warning.

And every beautiful thing
looked like it would leave them first.

They checked their watch during conversations,
and during silences,
and during the silences inside silences.
Wristbone to pulsebone.
Pulsebone to waiting.
Waiting to breaking.

Laughter began arriving half a second too late.
Hands hesitated before meeting other hands.
Even happiness felt like something overheard through a door.

Because how can wonder survive
when wonder is already wound toward loss?
How can happiness hold itself together
when it hears its ending inside its beginning?

They stopped living moments.
They lived toward them, against them, lived as though living itself was already leaving.

And they just kept watching the watch during dinner
and the watch in church
and the watch beside their lover’s sleeping hand.

They stopped living fully.
Then stopped fully living.

The clockmaker knew this one person too well.

His workshop breathed cold clockwork.
Cold copper caught candlelight like frozen time.
Cogs clacked and clacked never stopped.

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He had watched them flinch at sunsets, at ringing phones,
at beautiful strangers and every beautiful thing
that looked like it would leave them first.

He had watched them live as though living had already left them,
live as though life had already been lived,
live as though every moment arrived with its ending folded inside it.

Then one day,
that one person climbed the hill
to his workshop of gears and dust and grinding cold clockwork.

“How do people survive,” they asked,
“not knowing?”

Not knowing, repeating, breaking, returning.

The old man looked exhausted.

“They don’t,” he said.
“They live.”

Live.

The word lingered, looped, returned
live becoming living becoming lived becoming life again,
a small reversal of everything that had been wound too tightly.

So they tore the watch away.

Tore it, turned it, took it apart at the wrist and the root of time itself.

Smashed it against stone.

Glass scattered like frozen tears, like fractured seconds, like splintered light.
The hands spun wildly once.
A stuttering refusal of stillness
before stopping forever.

And suddenly,

the world broke its own repetition,
its own rhythm, its own relentless return.

Rain was only rain again.
A kiss was only a kiss again.
A name was only a name again.
A moment was only a moment again.

Only.

For the first time in years,
they touched another human hand
without listening beneath it for its ending,
without hearing the hidden hinge of departure.

Without waiting for it to become loss,
loss already rehearsing itself in the background.

And that is the tragedy of certainty:

when one person knows too much of their future,
they begin to leave their own life
before it ever arrives,
leave before leaving,
leave as living,
leave as a life already half-ticked away.

They spend their whole existence
waiting for the lightning.

never noticing
how beautiful the sky was
before it split open.

lunar radishBOT
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@pearl vault has sent a notification! - @idle elbow @bronze ibex @unborn knot @charred raptor @little maple @wintry basin @twilit yacht @proud crow @gilded stone Use /help for help.

charred raptor
proud crow
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Real

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Dang

proud crow
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Lovely! Great job friend

pearl vault
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i like the stuff i did with it

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aside from anaphora and epistrophe

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there is a LOT more

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phonetically too

pearl vault
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ngl its nice to see you like it

proud crow
proud crow
pearl vault
orchid onyx
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Oooo, I like it!

lethal nest
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Nice one

pearl vault
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@rigid magnet

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@gilded stone btw i wanted your thoughts on this poem

pearl vault
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@restive meadow @fast cove

fast cove
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This reads like a philosophical narrative about time anxiety, where life is experienced not as presence but as anticipation of loss, and the “clock” becomes a symbol of psychological imprisonment rather than measurement.

The opening is strong and atmospheric: “In the oldest part of the city” and the immediate focus on “cold clockwork” and “cold copper” establishes a mechanical emotional world. The repetition of “cold” works well here because it creates texture rather than decoration. The clockmaker is introduced in a grounded way, and the physicality of “cogs clacked beneath his cracked hands” gives the abstraction a tangible anchor.

The early concept is clearly established: Not counting down death, but marking the psychological split between “before and after.”
That idea is one of the strongest structural foundations of the piece. It reframes time not as duration but as rupture.

The middle section is especially effective: “A first kiss they could not trust” “a phone call at 2 a.m.” These examples ground the philosophy in everyday emotional events, which makes the abstraction feel lived rather than theoretical.

The stanza: “Every sunset became a warning” is powerful, but also where the poem begins to settle into pattern.

The line: “Wristbone to pulsebone. Pulsebone to waiting.” is one of the strongest rhythmic moments in the piece. The internal repetition and bodily framing make anxiety feel mechanical and physical at once.

The philosophical question section: “How can wonder survive / when wonder is already wound toward loss?” is effective but slightly overt. It articulates what the imagery has already been showing, so it feels more like explanation than discovery.(A good thing)

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The narrative turn with the clockmaker works well structurally. The dialogue: “They don’t. They live.” is simple, almost blunt, and that simplicity contrasts effectively with the earlier conceptual density. This is one of the cleanest emotional pivots in the piece.

The destruction of the watch is also strong visually: “Glass scattered like frozen tears” The repetition of “fractured seconds” and “splintered light” reinforces the theme.
The ending is the most effective part conceptually: “The tragedy of certainty” and the final realization about waiting for lightning instead of seeing the sky gives the piece a clear philosophical resolution. It lands because it reframes the entire emotional structure into perception rather than event.

Overall, it is a cohesive and thoughtful piece about temporal anxiety, strongest when it trusts its imagery and character interaction, and slightly weaker when it reiterates the same emotional concept in increasingly similar forms rather than evolving it.

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No criticism loved this 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

pearl vault
grand pilot
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I love this line!

"And that is the tragedy of certainty:

when one person knows too much of their future,
they begin to leave their own life
before it ever arrives,
leave before leaving,
leave as living,
leave as a life already half-ticked away.

They spend their whole existence
waiting for the lightning.

never noticing
how beautiful the sky was
before it split open."

pearl vault
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the ending is one of my favourite parts too

muted lava
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I really like the way this poem ends, and how it infuses imagery to help encapsulate the reader. Some of the repetition I do think is unnecessary, as it doesn't really add to the poem that has a lot of other, more meaningful repetition. (Repeating warning four times, silences three times and during twice)

The use of dialogue and seeming switch from perspectives helps to keep the readers attention, and seems to bring up a sort of existential dread and anxiety fueled spiral.

I think this is a well done piece overall heart

plain kettle
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I find it to be a very fascinating introspection on fear and dread of knowing the future andthe narrative interwinds it in a very introspective and welded manner

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the alliteration is very interesting to the sounding clicking clock works

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it creats this prying and circling feeling that the entire poem seems to be casting itself into

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althought I do agree with rosey some of the repitition espeically in the last stanza does feel a bit repetative and it creats this overstatment of feeling and it also could use a bit of restrained as it is going on to have a sort of clarity revlatory feeling about it, coming in and realizing what is occuring in the poem

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the quite dread through out it though very good

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and I quite enjoyed the fantasy elements too

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the psychological trap too is rendered with a great deal of subtly though I would refrain from declative and rhetorics imo

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but overall really enojoyed this piece thank you for sharing

pearl vault