Sarah D. Silvey

I am afraid to die.
I am afraid to live.
I love life but it is never enough.
If I had kids I could say, there, I did that, I made something good.
If I were a real writer I could shake the world up a little.
But I’m just normal
Trying to be happy.
Having achieved happy
I fall out of happiness
And must work my way back up again.
What if I get sick.
What if I only have twenty good years left.
What is the difference
If I only have fifty years
Or twenty years?
Either amount
Is nothing
Nothing
A wisp of dandelion
The heartbeat of a gnat.
We are born of an enormous universe
We are fleas
Specks
Motes
Less still than that.
Our time is tiny.
It is easy to forget.
Our time is a splinter of ice
That melts the moment it exists.
Time is my enemy.
Time is my friend.

I write in dichotomies.
I write about time.
To live in that moment before death
To never forget where you’re going
To never forget where you are.
Every second
Must
Be
Savored.
I read a story about a man
Going to his execution.
He tried to split every moment in half.
He hoped that by doing this
The last moment
Would never arrive.
Today I breathe
Again.
A victory.
Today I remembered
What yawns before me
Is an open grave.
How soon will it accept me?
How soon will I accept it?
And when I get to the edge
I want to look back and say,
Yes. I savored those moments.
I squeezed more out of life
Than anyone.
I never
Never
Took what I had for granted.
Everything was precious.
Everything was vivid.
Everything was loved.