Dust
by Caleb Jones
It’s the little things that remind me
I am real.
The grime inside the sink,
the tiny hairs on the toilet’s rim.
Little pieces of my body
falling off in flakes,
in strands,
in invisible dust.
In twenty years' time
every atom in my body
will have been replaced by another.
The residue of my old self
spread like the ashes
of the cremated.
Only slower.
More meticulously.
And with far less reverence.
My home,
my car,
my school,
everywhere I have been
will have a little bit of me.
That is how it is,
whether we mean it to be
or not.
We leave a little bit of ourselves
behind.