Existential Dread

-Benjamin Barrett

I didn’t believe you when you told me

our own little speck of a world

was nothing more than a grain of sand.

Are we so small that to the flame

which we call the sun

we are only a bit of dust on the hearth?

What about the oceans

with those symphonies of waves,

rising along storms lying like blankets,

even far beyond the horizon?

I know we’re bigger than that.

Are we not giants ourselves

to the ants and worms beneath our feet?

They flee us, like gods of old

holding in our hands the

power of life and death.

I didn’t believe you at first,

but when I saw the stars and galaxies,

I realized we were only ants and worms

in some greater giant’s house.