Ash

"I returned home with a pocket full of stolen ash. Half of it fell out of my coat and vanished into the car's upholstery. But the rest I carefully stowed away in a box I kept in a drawer by the side of my bed. It was never intended as a meaningful act but over the years it became a kind of talisman. I'd sit still, quite still, for hours just holding the diminishing powder in my palm and noting its smoothness. In time, we will all be worn down, into granules, washed into the sea and dispersed."

It's the case I see. I don't know how I should feel about this. It makes me think, do we fight for our lives while we live them, should we work to make them better and ensure it's not wasted time, or is it all simply trivial? People, possessions, women, money. What is it? Anymore I've come to realize that we fight and care, we plot out events, our days, reactions, even lives sometimes. But we don't know, not where we are from, not where we are going, not even if the ones we love will be there the next morning, or if we will love those ones the next morning. I have spent most of my night repeating events over and over again in my head, often wondering what I should have done different. But those dreams grow, into trees, what would I do then, what would have happened next. By the time hours have passed I realize I've just been sitting still  waisting the time I do have left. It becomes a haunting thought, it humbles you. The thought that your, or even more worrying, your loves body, will one day have no value, no memories, nothing to show it different from the remains of anyone, or anything else. I watched as people I cared about feel into pieces, my life appearing to collapse around me, as I tried to grasp the last of what may one day matter to me, I saw it catch a flame. The fire of inevitability burnt as I ran away, and once I came back, all that was left was embers. No matter how hard I tried to reconstruct what once was, it was clear, it could not, and did not want to be salvaged. Fait was fair, replacing items once lost, but I couldn't be pulled up from the rubble, I decided, I must keep searching, for I knew, I could never be happy with out it, I would never be able to replace it. And I waisted the decades left of my time, holding the ash knowing that whatever happened from this point on, didn't matter, every smile, every touch, every kindness given by another person, would be met by a polite, but affected smile. By the time I had gained mind back, I could only think about my fault, and how I couldn't forgive myself for it.