i went through my mid-life crisis at twenty.
i dare say, that doesn't bode well for my longevity.
five years on and now i've done
twenty-five arbitrary circles
around the sun. a quarter century
spent spinning like a top
upon this pale blue dot.
one year older and i've only grown
colder at the thought of a life
stuck, stranded on this rock.

in the grand scheme of reality,
i am but a solitary blip in a lonely corner
of the Milky Way. the galaxy gasped
and, in the blink of an eye, i passed
once more into nothingness—finite.
with my last act, i'll whisper,
"it is finished" and breathe
a sigh of relief.

but a piece of me will last an eternity.
like the hammer of the gods, i was forged
in the core of a dying hyper-giant.
my bones are fashioned from star-stuff
and to that same dust i return, inexorably,
tugged apart in the fusion of the multiverse,
scattered to all corners of the cosmos.

when humanity is long extinct, molecules
that once belonged to our bodies will cling
to each other and build new bonds.
i'd like to think that i'll find you there, lovely,
rotating and waiting for me,
adrift in the fabric of space-time,
so we might embark on a new journey
and spend a moment or two entwined.