Hush Now, Child

I eat oatmeal in the morning and wonder how many mornings I will eat oatmeal. I wonder how many mornings it will be until I am serving oatmeal to my herd of children. Three minutes ago I was in kindergarten, following plastic footprints of the imaginary classroom leprechaun. I have sixty seconds until I graduate college. When I microwave water and press the faded white buttons for a minute-forty-five, I realise that two minutes are slipping away. Then nine minutes. And then I get my degree and marry some boy and I am scooping sand up off the beach with my fingers wide open and everything is slipping through. You can’t hold on to anything for longer than it is happening. Nineteen minutes from now I am going to die. And in the next millisecond, nothing will matter. Not a thing.