It's just a moment
A crinkly smile
An innocent thought,
About babies or ambitions,
And suddenly I'm old,
Suddenly I crinkle.
I watch myself crack slowly,
No wait--all too fast.
Suddenly it's empty, as it was before
But I can't remember
It must have slipped my mind.
What does nothing feel like?
Like sleep or pointless thought?
Is it rice cakes or white or black,
Or all those words unsaid?
I'll never know what nothing is.
Not even when I'm dead.
Nothing comes and nothing leaves
The nothingness again.

It isn't names that brings me there,
Or tombs or words or history,
It's when I blink and see before me,
Me, but crinkly.
Me, but looking back on the supple face of now,
Looking back and seeing the story from the other end,
And standing in the epilogue
All in a single blink.

I see so much, and hear so much
I smell, touch, I taste and fear
And love and hate and joke so much
It should have killed me
Made my hardware overheat,
Made me want the nothing.

But even when I see her,
(Me, but crinkly)
I know she's laughed and cried much more,
And I'm glad I gave her the chance