Made of Everthing
when i was in high school
my teacher told me
“The amount of matter in the universe has
remained the same since the Big Bang.”
and then i started to think...
in all the millennia that this planet has existed
we have gained
nothing…
not a fleck
not a grain
not even a single
breath
the universe has simply been vacuum-sealed
just a coiling kaleidoscope that has repeated
re-recorded
reordered itself
a million billion trillion gazillion times over
that means every baby
every human
is a unique concoction
a brew, a mixtape
of all that has come before
made from molecules of Gandhi and stardust
and meteors and volcanic ash
and colloidal silver and da Vinci’s tears
and the same darkness that
fills the cosmos
is between, and inside,
our own atoms
when you know this
you suddenly see the bustling city streets
the gardens of orchids and roses
the children playing
in the rain
as a phenomenon
this assemblage of humanity is by means of a
starburst constellation
families are brilliant, unorthodox-shaped nebulae
finding the one you love is a galaxy being born
we are all bizarre, exclusive, wandering
mini-universes
we have never been
before
and we will never be
again
the sheer exuberance
the unlikely experience of our existences
the honor of merely being
alive
they will never be able to make you again
don’t you dare waste a second
thinking something better will happen
when it ends
don’t you dare