Death has never scared me;
I taught myself, quiet young,
That everything that exists will perish
And everyone I love will leave me someday.

As a result,
I have always considered humans
to be insignificant;
Tiny, breathing creatures
On a planet that floats on a cosmic river.

We have dreams
Bigger than our entire existence,
Insane hopes
Of healing everything we can.
We extend our hands
To the sun
To get strength
And end up with seething blisters.
We give birth to civilizations
And then burn them down.
We build then break,
Thrive then beg,
Flourish then wither.

But everyday,
I wake up to more deaths.
A tidal wave
Wipes out entire generations;
I grieve in silence
For the odes i will never write,
For the people who left
Before I could try to heal them.

And with every death,
I see humans
Falling like flies,
Crashing like raindrops
On cafe windows,
Metal on metal,
Withering to the ground
Like flowers that were not nurtured
And dreams that were abandoned too soon.

I keep telling myself
That it doesn’t matter,
That its not going to affect me,
But it does.
It sure as hell does.

With every departed soul
And every unsent letter
I see
How much of an impact
A single person can have.

With every tear i do not shed,
And every song that now is tainted,
And every memory i am too scared to re-visit,
I realise
That I will never look at a certain flower
The way i used to before
Because it holds too many memories.

I realise
That my grandfather
Will bring up
His friend
In every conversation he can
Just to hold on
To whatever he remembers.

If one death
Can resurrect my poetry
Because I have so much to say,
Then maybe
Humans aren’t so insignificant after all.