From Nothing to Nothing

Once, I was not—

I was nothing.

 

Then I became a longing,

a spirit alive in my parents’ hearts—

their wish made flesh,

their love’s first dream.

 

That love sealed my beginning:

a spark of fusion

in my mother’s womb.

She discovered me—

a tender smile,

fragile, new,

safe and sheltered,

lovingly awaited.

 

I became a season of waiting,

names whispered over me,

my gender still unknown.

On my birthday

I received a name—

and my first roles.

 

For so long I was almost nothing,

but now I was son,

little brother, grandchild,

citizen of the world—

a soul in God’s reflection,

meant to be myself,

and wholly free.

 

Yet with every role I took,

more weight was added—

less freedom,

more expectation,

pressures spoken or silent.

From allowed to be

to must do—

the toll of adulthood.

 

Tired of the yoke,

I searched for myself:

for freedom,

for the unbroken child within.

Believing I was “so much,”

I stumbled on my own shadow.

 

From child to youth,

to grown, to elder—

life as experiment,

without retakes.

 

Then came the great realization:

I am the sum of all my choices.

 

And I know one day I’ll be no more

than a memory that fades.

Dust you are, and to dust you shall return—

dust for thought.

 

From nothing to longing,

to something, to memory,

to dust, to nothing.

 

Between nothing and nothing lies my life.

Why the rush? I am a link

between past and future generations.

My greatest task:

to leave the world

a little kinder

than it was given to me.

 

When I close my eyes

and fade from something back to nothing,

I hope to die with a smile—

not for what I did or who I was,

but for what I passed on.

 

I lived in the freedom of being,

the outcome of love,

and love as my outcome.

 

 

By Alex Verlek ©