Today I saw a guy who was attacked and nearly killed last night. I saw the ugly marks across his back where he was beaten, and around his throat where someone tried to smother out his life. I saw the pain in his face while he tried to brush it off and convince himself he'd be okay. I hardly know him, but his brush with death impacted me so much.
I wonder how many people would think of me more than twice if I died. Death seems so far away, so distant, so un-ordinary, so unreal at times. Almost like a myth, or a legend you're brought up to believe in, even though you're not sure it actually happened. I wonder how different dying is than living. We don't remember what it was like to be born - do we remember afterwards what it was like to die? We don't like thinking about death, because we like to live too much. But how much life means to us doesn't really sink in until we know how real death is. It could happen any second. It's absolutely the most unpredictable thing.
He could have died. But he didn't. He's breathing oxygen on the twenty third of July. Today he felt the intense heat of the sun on his head. People talked to him today, because he is alive.
I am alive. God gave me breath today. His face shone on me today. He has a purpose for me, therefore I live.

Death so conclusive
So final, so rigid.
Life so elusive
So precious, so vivid.
Each unpredictable,
Fleeting, and rare.

Has anyone read this poem before?

A piece of midnight
falls
Shatters;
dashing hopes of hidden,
darkness covered
Sins.
Revealed, disclosed,
a bleeding heart lies bare,
Exposed.
Deaf to cries for Shame,
to change one life it
fights to live again.
All this to breathe in peace
One Time.

The reason I ask is because I had a dream. I don't remember what the dream was about, but when I woke up, I remembered a man speaking this poem to me. I've never heard it before, but thought that if you get a poem in a dream, you should probably write it down. I almost feel as if it isn't mine, because I didn't make it. I heard it from a man who doesn't exist.

Every time I meet a new person, I wonder what I will remember about them in ten years. His hair, that on anyone else would look just bad, but for some reason works on him; her inquisitive smile and sparkling eyes; their laugh; the necklace they always wear; the sunglasses that were supposed to make them look cool; What will I think of when that person enters my head? So many pieces of today become the fragments of our past tomorrow. It can be a beautiful thing.

"We'd like more coffee over here."
"The sandwich is good, but I don't like the lettuce."
"Can we get some more water?"
"Bless you heart, we'd like our check."
"Do you have high chairs?"
"I'd like this wrapped."
"Separate checks, please."
"There will be ten of us."

And I smile. When with every moment my mental energy is being slowly and steadily drained by the iron hand of responsibility; When I can't find the busser and three tables need to be cleared; When I haven't sat down for two seconds in the past eight hours; When exhaustion is all my body is aware of, and all my mind needs to ignore; When, if I allowed it, the minute details of pleasing people could overwhelm and disable me, I smile. Because the triumph of succeeding in pleasing those people is such a sweet satisfaction. Because any one of these people could turn into a regular, with a name like Bob or Charlotte, who will add so much in a conversation, to my life. Because they're people, who need to know that in the moment they ask me for extra lemon, I am concerned about them, and will not fail them in this request. So I smile, and say 'of course.' And when I get home I will think about them for the next hour and a half, I will dream about them in the night, I will write about them in my book, and they will have become a part of my life, a part of my past, a part in shaping me into the woman I've yet to be.