What it Means to be Alive

Two years ago,

Change

Was the worst

Imaginable

Thing.

Thinking about how

Everything was finite

All of it,

A non-renewable resource,

Made my stomach

Flip

Flop.

And then

In science

We start talking about

Plants

And our teacher 

Holds up a container bursting with green 

And asks

‘What makes this plant alive?’

In my notebook,

I write about the things

That second-graders learn

At educational plays

‘Water’

‘Food’

‘It grows’

And then I think

‘Death’

It would not be alive

If it could not die.

Nothing is special

Without

Finite-ness.

Why live

If you live forever?

Why read a book

With no ending?

Why do your best today

If you know for certain

That there’s going to be a tomorrow?

Time

Is special to us mortals

Because,

In fact,

We are mortal.

It is running out,

But what would we do

If it weren’t?

(Now,

I am grateful,

Happy,

For the idea of change

Of not having everything

forever)