Knowing What It’s Like Not to Know

Ever wonder what it’s like to die?

Well, it’s complicated, for

We are all conscious; we feel, we think,

We live, we exist.

Do you feel scared, sometimes?

Knowing that one day, you won’t know

What it’s like to know.

One day, you will slowly forget

Your first steps, the wind on your face,

The laughter of friends, your failures in a test—

All the joy, the sadness, the anger, the regrets,

Even fear,

Will all slowly fade,

Fade

Until it turns to dust.

We have different explanations for what happens when we die.

Some believe in reincarnation.

Perhaps, this could be true,

As all things in this world are never created nor destroyed.

Maybe we won’t be reborn as someone new

But become the building blocks for something else.

Perhaps our souls would fuel the fire that cremates our body,

And our ashes will drift in the sea, getting eaten by fish.

Will we become part of the fish? And then, if the fish is small,

We’d become part of a seagull or a penguin sooner or later.

Or, if we’re (un)lucky, we’d be eaten by other humans,

Making them indirect cannibals.

That’s quite a disturbing thought, but

We drink the waters dinosaurs once drank a millennia ago.

Or maybe our souls would be imbued

In the life that consumed us, and we’d be born as energy to fuel

A new being.

A squawking bird? A drifting sunfish? We wouldn’t know, because then

We wouldn’t know what it’s like to know.

One day, I believe, surely,

We will rise from the fires that burn us, the waters that drown us, the car that smashed us to smithereens,

And we’d be born again in some new, peculiar form, learning, growing, knowing.

But even if that day never comes,

Don’t be afraid.

You know what it’s like to know now,

And you will still exist.

You’re just unaware of it, and

All you’ll know

Is what it’s like to not know.