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How do we embrace impermanence?
THE IMPERMANENCE OF COOKIES
Age 1:
The cookie was eaten.
No level of sobbing
could bring it back.
Age 3:
The cookie was eaten.
No amount of thrown
Minnie Mouse dishes
would materialize another.
Age 7:
The cookie was eaten.
I proposed a deal:
“I’ll clean the toy box
if I can have another.”
Bargaining failed hard.
Had to clean the toy box anyway!
Age 14:
The cookie was eaten.
I threw myself on the bed,
wailed,
and said I was too fat and ugly
to deserve another.
Age 74:
The cookie was eaten.
I thought about the tendency
of all cookie systems
to move toward randomness and disorder.
I thought about the constant flux
and cookie decay in the universe.
Recognizing our shared impermanence,
I felt sad—
the cookie and I,
each facing entropy alone.
I thought all this
while I enjoyed my second cookie.
And even more
with my third.