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will have been replaced by another.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.





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