My Computer is a Traitor

I have reset my computer's clock three times since returning to Central Standard Time.

Yet inevitably a few days after resetting my traitorous computer, I open my screen to find i am still in Argentine time.

Currently it is 7:47 PM. I am sitting down to eat with mi familia. Maite is hiding under the table trying to tickle my feet. Inaquis is telling me yet another joke in Spanish I don't understand. Gustavo and Angles are exchanging office gossip and Teo is passing me another serving of food even after I pleaded “estoy llena.”

That is according to my computer.

My brain knows it is 4:47 PM. That I just walked home in the most miserable cold rain after a day of lectures I could understand but not feel. My brain knows I need to do at least another 3 hours of homework before I can even begin to fantasize about the folds of my bed.

My heart is in cahoots with my computer. My heart is opening the patio window and breathing in Argentina, breathing in fresh, hot beginnings.

But my body is here, frozen in Madison, frozen in the past, slipping on the sidewalk between the past and the future.

And I am left wondering; has anything changed in 7 months?

Or am I still crying on concrete steps?

My computer and my heart are in denial, hoping by freezing time in Argentina, they can ignore the past here.

But there are the concrete steps, looking slippery with regret.