Your are poetry...
"What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon", Annie Dillard asks? What would you make if you knew you were running out of time? If you were making it for someone whose days were counting down too? What would you, could you say, that would be neither trivial or indulgent? Something honest and meaningful and utterly bullshit-less. Something that would not be wasteful of the moments we have left.
We are terminal patients, you and I. Together on the same floor. In the same ward. Stars that started dying out on the day we were born. Not one of us gets out alive here.
"If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate you subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out" Kurt Vonnegut says. Brandish the red pencil recklessly. Edit with impunity, with impartiality, with pure butchery.
If this moment is all that we have. If each one that passes is one that will never get back to us, all the more reason to choose each word as if it was your last one…
There is beauty in the austerity. A poise and graciousness within the somberness and severity. An appreciation. An Elegance in the simple things.
You are an economy. A rhythm. A measure. A cadence. The pulse. The heartbeat. The punctuated breathing.
You are poetry.
We are all going to die soon. That is why every word is important.
This piece is very thoughtful. That Dillard quote really made me think.
I love the bit about terminal patients, you create the image well - showing that we al have that temporary lifetime, only have so much we can put out - is it wise to choose our words carefully or should we flood the world with our thoughts and feelings? Should we concentrate on quality over quantity? Does it even matter once we are gone?
I like the Vonnegut quote, I like your sentiment on choosing your words as if they were your last - make them count they say - we look back to John Green in Looking for Alaska where the protagonist, Miles, is obsessed with famous last words. I recall reading it for the first time and realising that they are indeed important… I prefer the wonderment of the likes of Francois Rabelais, “I go to seek a great perhaps." the pondering of what comes next, and Breecher’s “Now comes the mystery." To the pitiful, like the words of Poe, “Lord help my poor soul." A reflection of things to come, a hope that something lies beyond - sorry, went a little off kilter here.
A stunning ending to this piece too, a complimentary list of the magic of what we are, each of us our own poem with our own structure, our own form.