the law of diminishing personalities

the people around you are going to die
before you do---
the people you love,
the people you hate &
even the people that you haven’t quite come to any conclusion about---
they will all
perish
before you,
because if you go,
they go
automatically---
and this isn’t new,
or exciting, or
especially
thrilling to hear---
but it is something that we all know
deep down in our own hearts & minds
when we feel most vulnerable &
most alone in this accidental world in which
each
one of
us
is an accident as well,
but it certainly should shed some light on the value of our present
existence---
it certainly should make us look around &
see the faces of the people who know us best
in
this
very
moment---
the smiles & the frowns, the laughs & the tears which all come with
our very human lives,
illustrating the very essence of what it is to be alive
amongst so much
death---
and though all who we love & with whom we share our warmest
occasions will
disappear,
their personalities will halt only in the fact that they
no longer produce new
material---
we are so fortunate to have shared a deep conversation,
or an exchange of intimate thoughts with
anyone in this
short
short
life,
so that when our family & friends have gone,
we still walk in the library of their memory---
we still pull from the shelves
volumes
of words & actions
which defined for us both sweet &
bittersweet
connections
that now still illuminate our own
heartbeats,
our own thought processes &
our every
step,
if we are so wise to not dwell in the inevitable
sadness that these individuals are physically
gone & to instead
take them with us in our own journey while we
still are
breathing
life.