Legacy

A boy once asked me:

“How do you want to be remembered?”

Just a way of making

casual conversation

to fill the empty space.

I almost said:

“No one is remembered, not really.

We all fade,

and yet,

there is always an effort

to be real.

Everlasting.

Undying even in death.

We are but a flower in the heat of summer, a wave upon the shore.”

No one is eternal.

I did not say that though.

I just smiled,

a liar's smile

and spoke meaningless words.

Something about writing a book.

Ink lasts,

until it doesn’t.

Thoughts memorialized,

the beautiful

and

the ugly.

Ripped, torn, judged by future generations.

Do we want to be remembered?

I never said the last part either.

And so the conversation continued,

lighthearted, insubstantial.

Empty words for empty people.

Soon to be forgotten.

No one wants to be remembered.