I realised today
That we, as humans,
Spend our entire lives running from two things:-

Despair, and
Death.

When a virus
Takes over our entire world,
We stay
Behind cloth masks
And locked doors;
Just to make sure
That a plague
Does not decide
Our lifespan.

When I sneeze,
My grandmother screams ‘bless you!’;
From the other side of the house;
Because when someone sneezes,
Their heart stops for a millisecond.
The ‘bless you’
Is a euphemised prayer
That echoes
I hope your heart is healthy
For the rest of your life.

I remember reading somewhere
That the universe simply gave us stars;
We drew lines between them,
Discovered constellations
From burning, hurting masses
Of heat
Millions of light years away.

The universe simply gave us life;
We chose to remember
The day we were born,
Celebrate our existences
Even if it is
For a fraction of time.

When an eyelash
Falls onto my cheek,
Exhausted after its lifetime
Of servitude,
My sister insists
That I place it on my palm,
Make a wish,
Then blow on it.

And never will I stop being amazed
At this ability of ours
To weave something
Hauntingly beautiful
From something so tragic.

In our endless runs from grief,
We end up crafting
Cities from wreckage,
Statues from ashes,
Poetry from broken dreams.

In every ‘I love you’
And ‘I miss you’,
We throw out
Another solitary request
For the universe
To embrace us.

And from this
Inexhaustible,
Insatiable
Urge of ours
To make or lives worth living,
I learn
That despair and death
Are inevitable.
There is no point
Running from what is destined.

What we can do, though,
Is hold
Yet another hand,
Sing
Yet another poem,
Dream
Yet another dream,
Breathe
A little deeper,
Close our eyes,
And say
Thank you.

Because when death greets us,
And when we know enough to not resist it,
We
Will look back at the life we lived,
And say thank you
To ourselves
For making magic
Out of something
That refused to be born magical.