You want a
physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to
talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy,
so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want
the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law
of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe,
and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all
your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of
every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in
this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father
that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you
got.
And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.
And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.
And you’ll
want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they
need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let
them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured
precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate,
verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope
your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves
that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted
to know your energy’s still around. According to the law
of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone;
you’re just less orderly. Amen.
Aaron Freeman, “You Want a Physicist To Speak at Your Funeral”
This is how to close your heart
up tight like a fist. Desire is a hot
spike through the chest and
you’ve
only just learned what it
is to want someone so badly that
you need a new name for what
you feel. I
promise that it is not
always like this. Not everyone you
meet is unattainable, but
we’re
young, and the
number of times
that someone tells you no is going
to outnumber how many times
they say yes.
Learn how to be
lonely. Learn what it’s like to
know
that you are coming home to
yourself night
after night—
that empty is just another
word
for open.
kristina haynes, The not love poem