undeveloped film

i grow old as i worry about dying young

I can't write poetry to save my life, but I can procrastinate doing an important assignment.

//

i grow old as i worry about dying young.

sitting, ruminating on the hundreds of ways

-not the ways i may die -

but the hundreds of ways the people i love find out.

sometimes they are sitting idly,

often they're busy, saving the world with the most casual of tasks

but every time, i can see them freeze like caught prey.

the glow in their eyes dim to barely-there embers

and the world stops for a moment.

sometimes they cry,

often they're paralyzed, waiting to wake up from a living nightmare;

i still haven't figure out which is worse.

i worry about dying young.

not due to a fear of death,

but rather, the fear of who i leave behind.

i fear leaving so many stories untold, songs unsung;

i fear missing out on an overwhelming amount of love.

i fear that i will be remembered and i fear that my memory will cease to exist.

but time stops ticking for no one,

so as i sit and ruminate, thoughts travelling down a familiar tread,

and i worry about dying young,

i grow old.

and all that time

- the distance between young and old -

is lost.

//