This poem is not built for forever.

Let’s assume, however unlikely,
that it resonates with you and becomes timeless.
Printed and reprinted in books
and engraved into stone
and retold from memory into perpetuity.

Or, much more likely, it stays here.
Written on a page or on a screen
and shared between the people who know me
and the people who know them
for as long as anyone remembers me
or you
or us.

Maybe you’ll have children (or already do)
and those children will know about the poem
who will then tell their children about the poem.
Regardless of which one of these situations comes true,
the outcome will remain the same.

Some time in the next few hundred
or the next few thousand years
humans will dwindle and decrease
be it by our own doing
or by something entirely separate from us.
Maybe I will be extremely lucky
and one of those humans will remember this poem
and will recite it again.
But probably not.

Even in this best case scenario,
this poem is still not built for forever.
One day the sun will explode and swallow Earth
and everything we’ve thought
or written or cared about
will disappear into cosmic fire.
Maybe we will have left Earth by then,
but that doesn’t matter.
Somewhere down the line,
somehow, it will all end.
Everything ends eventually.

So in the bigger picture,
I mean, the MUCH bigger picture,
this poem matters about as much
as the nap you took after working
in the garden today
or the laughing fit you shared with a lover
or the dessert you chose not to have.
All things being equal like this,
if none of these things matter,
then maybe it all matters.
Maybe it’s all the small, stupid things
that won’t exist forever
but do exist right now and are lovely
and perfect for you.

This poem is not built for forever,
although neither are you.
And that’s definitely the most interesting thing
about any of it.