One Hour from Forever by Gabrielle Munslow

One Hour from Forever

An hour near the mouth of a black hole

is a thousand years on Earth—

time stretched thin as silk,

pulled by a gravity

that eats clocks for breakfast.

Down there,

your heartbeat would still be yours,

steady as ever,

while oceans rise and fall

a hundred generations away.

To you,

light bends slow—

honey from a spoon.

To them,

you are already a ghost,

your name worn smooth

by centuries.

The deeper you fall,

the more time loosens its grip—

And if you turned back,

you would step into a world

that no longer knows you.

A world

that held you

for an hour.

Gabrielle Munslow is a UK-based poet and nurse practitioner whose work explores embodiment, grief, and transformation through mythic and psychological lenses. Her poetry has appeared in Strange Horizons, The Ekphrastic Review, Neon Origami, Bristol Noir, and Sky Island Journal. She is the winner of the Apricity & Ink March Drabble Contest for “Alien News Flash.” She writes at the edge of lived experience and the surreal.