The Death Of Something

The death of something is the thing that makes it real.

The death of something is testament to the fact that it was there in the first place. It’s the thing that makes sense of it, the thing that gives life to it, the thing that puts it on a scale and allows it to be measured. The death of something requires that it unarguably, fundamentally, was.

I’m happy about that when it comes to you and me, because we don’t have anything at all and that means it can never die.

An alive thing is like a bead of water moving along a thread. It goes up and down as you turn it, a particle of infinity, indefinable. You watch the back and forth motion for as long as it goes until it either evaporates or falls away.

You have no idea how I feel, because I will never tell you.

I won’t tell you because there are immovable things. There are practical things, and impractical things, and maybe if we were each drafting different narratives they would have eventually meshed, but I don’t think I can change anyone’s trajectory anymore through my own solitary persuasion.

Look, I will want to say. This could be something. We could be something. We haven’t tried this yet, so why not try?

I will want to ask those and more uncomfortable questions. I will want to ask questions I don’t have a right to ask, questions you don’t want to answer honestly, even to yourself. Questions like: Do you love her? Do you have to love her? On a scale of one to buried in adjacent coffins, how much do you love her?

I will want to know what you’re feeling without actually asking what you’re feeling because I am worried the answer is nothing.

But it could also be something.

But who am I to disturb the water on your thread?