stuck in his time

i was a clock. not flashy, not loud. just mine. time passed the way i let it— slow, careful, soft. each tick a heartbeat. each hour a boundary. then he came. not with kindness, not with care— with want. with hands like force, like he thought time would bend if he pushed hard enough. he didn’t ask what hour i was in. he didn’t care that i wasn’t ready. he took his time— he took mine. and when he finished he left me behind like a broken thing. not even worth a glance. just tick… tick… nothing. the clock stopped. right there. right then. and now every day feels like i’m stuck in the second after it happened. hands frozen. air heavy. time still moving for everyone but me. they tell me to move on. to rewind, reset, act like the glass wasn’t shattered, like i’m not still finding shards in my chest every time i try to love myself again. they ask why i didn’t scream. why i didn’t run. why i let him wind me down. but clocks don’t fight. clocks just keep time until someone breaks them. and i was broken. not because i wanted to be. because someone looked at my stillness and thought silence meant yes. i didn’t stop ticking on my own. he stopped me. he reached inside and snapped something sacred and now the gears grind wrong, and the hands stutter, and sometimes i can’t tell if it’s today or then— if he’s still here or just inside me. i’m trying to fix it. i am. but no one tells you how hard it is to restart a clock when the person who broke it walks away like time never mattered.