Borrowed Time

The Princess and the Poet

Threshold

We begin to understand time

not as something we possess,

but as a current that moves through us.

There are moments when we feel

its quiet ripple in the body—

a slight adjustment,

a gentler pacing,

a care taken to preserve

what has always settled without thought.

We do not yield at once.

We steady what we can,

continue what is known,

hold the present

just a fraction longer.

And slowly,

very slowly,

we learn

how to remain

inside what is changing.

Your hand finds mine
by its own instinct.
A reflex.
The path already known.

Warmth arrives first.
Pressure follows.

The joining forms
in two small intervals,
as though contact
has to build itself
step by step—
never quite all at once.

Your shoulder meets mine
as it always has,
yet the weight settles
differently now—
requiring a slight shift.

My body answers it
before I have chosen to move.


We lie together
in our familiar arrangement,
heat present,
yet gathering
closer to the surface.

Nothing absent.
Nothing receding.

Yet completion
arrives

less immediately.


I adjust fractionally—
shoulder, hip—
allowing the moment
to keep its balance.

Again
I find the known positions,
yet something minute
remains
just outside alignment,

like a rhythm
heard perfectly
yet beating
slower than the time

already slipping beneath it.


© 2026 L. O. Campbell
All rights reserved.


✧


☆The Princess and the Poet continues…

End Note

We do not resist time entirely.

We negotiate with it.

We make small adjustments

in order to remain beside one another

as long as we are able.

What cannot be held still

can still be accompanied.

Borrowed Time - Publish grade Field Notes.

On Pressure, Adjustment, and the Body’s Knowledge

Borrowed Time is concerned with how intimacy alters under the pressure of time, not as an abstract concept but as a condition felt directly in the body. The poem does not attempt to describe loss or decline. Instead, it attends to the subtle changes in timing, contact, and alignment that occur before anything is named.

The Threshold establishes this shift in understanding. Time is no longer something possessed or measured externally, but something that moves through the body. It is encountered as a change in pacing, a need for care where none was previously required. The emphasis is not on what has changed, but on how that change is first registered: as a slight adjustment, a preservation instinct, a holding of the present just beyond its natural duration. The phrase “what has always settled without thought” is central here. It suggests that what was once automatic now requires attention. The body must begin to do consciously what it once carried effortlessly.

From this point, the poem moves into physical encounter. The opening lines deliberately avoid emotional framing. The hand finds the other by instinct. The gesture is habitual, known, and unremarkable. Yet the sequence of sensation—“Warmth arrives first. / Pressure follows.”—introduces a shift. Contact is no longer instantaneous. It arrives in stages.

This staging continues through the idea that “the joining forms / in two small intervals.” The connection must now build itself. It does not occur all at once. The addition of “never quite all at once” introduces the central tension: completion is approached, but not fully achieved. The system of closeness still functions, but it requires assembly.

The body becomes the primary site of knowledge. When the weight of the other settles differently, the speaker does not interpret or question. The body answers. The line “My body answers it / before I have chosen to move” articulates the poem’s governing principle: response precedes decision. The body adjusts to pressure before the mind can name it. This is not an emotional reaction but a mechanical one, a redistribution of load to maintain balance.

The poem sustains this attention to micro-adjustment. The lovers remain in their familiar arrangement, and nothing is explicitly lost. The line “Nothing absent. / Nothing receding.” is intentionally restrained. It avoids declaring absence while allowing for movement away. The tension lies in this distinction. The structure of connection remains intact, but its behaviour has altered.

Completion itself is affected. It still occurs, but it arrives “less immediately.” The introduction of white space before this phrase is not decorative; it enacts delay. The reader experiences the lag between expectation and fulfilment. Time no longer aligns with action.

The speaker responds through continual adjustment: “shoulder, hip—” small corrections that keep the system in equilibrium. These movements are not dramatic; they are precise. The goal is not to restore what was, but to maintain what can still be held.

The phrase “just outside alignment” marks the point at which the poem’s pressure becomes most concentrated. Alignment is not lost entirely, but it is no longer exact. The relationship exists in a state of near-fit, requiring constant correction. This is extended in the closing image of rhythm. The rhythm is still heard perfectly, but it beats slower than the time beneath it. The addition of “already slipping beneath it” introduces inevitability. Time is no longer something that can be matched or controlled. It moves independently, and the body must adapt to its pace.

The End Note reframes the poem without resolving it. It rejects the idea that time can be resisted entirely and instead presents intimacy as negotiation. The adjustments described throughout are not failures but acts of maintenance. To remain beside another person under these conditions requires ongoing recalibration.

The final line—“What cannot be held still / can still be accompanied.”—defines the ethic of the piece. The aim is not to preserve permanence, but to remain present within change. Accompaniment replaces possession. The bond is sustained not through stability, but through the willingness to adjust continuously.

Across the poem, pressure is generated not through emotional language, but through delay, resistance, and incomplete convergence. The reader does not encounter a statement about change. They experience the conditions of it: contact that arrives in stages, movement that requires effort, time that no longer aligns with action.

Borrowed Time therefore operates as a study in how systems behave under strain. It observes what happens when continuity is no longer effortless, and how the body responds before understanding intervenes. The result is not a narrative of loss, but a record of adjustment—of how love persists when it can no longer rely on ease.