Paper Two (I wrote this a week before the Boston bombings.)

Fri, 05/10/2013 - 21:15 -- Nina

Location

02134
United States
42° 21' 33.4836" N, 71° 7' 37.2972" W

As I read the letter you gave to our class, I am overcome with the sense of my weight on this earth and get the bizarre feeling that I am shrinking literally down to the size of a speck. If you could even call me a speck, I would be honored. I look around the mini- living room I sit in and think of all this tiny furniture I sit on. I think of the tiny people I have lost and the Nano-second of time they occupied in the existence of this universe. I think it almost seems unfair that we only get to see so much, until our blip of a life ends and before we have the time to barely even say a word. Or make a difference for that matter. We fill up our lives with meaningful causes and invaluable education to use professionally for possibly a third of our lives, if even that. It’s a horrible thought, but it is the truth, isn’t it?

As I read the letter you gave to our class, all things around me seem to vanish and go black… except of course for your letter floating in front of my narrowed vision. I squint at the pixelated image of the Breughel painting, waiting for a pair of flailing legs to suddenly pop out at me, as though they were to be alive. Then as though to remind me that I too exist, a car horn blears and stuns me back to this earth bound body... That’s right, there’s a world out there that doesn’t know I’m actually here. They must drive by my apartment and see the lights on through my living room windows, but see nothing; no signs of actual life. For all they know, I could be dead and they’re listening to Bill Withers and singing about the absence of the sun, as if our momentary issues in this universe had an affect on the sun shining through the clouds.
As I read the letter you gave to our class, I think of the danger you speak of and what dangers I have faced in my own life. Scarred and tattered is the little girl I made a home for in the dark shadows of my heart. I give place to my fragility; it’s only a muscle pumping blood through this temporary state, I am only here for a short while. One day very soon, my skin will begin to crinkle and my hands will become crooked and keep me from making things to keep me safe and warm. But the world will go on with its business of destroying just another speck in this universe, while I whither. And I’m sure that when I’m eighty-something and think I’ve seen the world, I will read my paper two, and become an unworthy speck all over again.

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