SECOND GRADE HEAT DEATH​

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Learning that the sun
will explode
in five billion years
& eat the Earth
& everything you know
& don’t know
& love
& don’t love
& maybe think is gross
& are too embarrassed to admit that you like because it’s not cool to like the cello while everyone
else is really into WWE & monster truck rallies & airsoft guns & fushigi balls & magnets &
moonshoes & Xboxes & baseball
& this list goes on and on and on until everything on that list, everything you have seen & will ever
see is ash & space dusted & splayed out like some sick game of Twister in so many rainbow colors
across the dark expanse of the galaxy
& this thought makes you sick, so sick you ask to go to the bathroom & sit on the toilet with your
head between your knees trying not to throw up while you think about your skin falling off like on
the Terminator & disintegrating into particulate matter, into its elemental forms floating like dust in
a forever empty room
& you’re seven, almost eight
& you don’t want to die as the stall walls close in around you
& they expect you to memorize times tables as soon as you’re feeling better.