Amber Koteras
I turn twenty-two years old in seven weeks, five days, six hours, and thirty-eight
minutes.
I spend a lot of time thinking about the future. When I was eight years old, I planned
every single course I would take from the time I started fourth grade to the time I
finished my PhD. When I was fourteen years old, I planned my suicide – the perfect
amount of symbolism combined with a 100% chance of death. When I was twenty-one
years old – I am twenty-one years old now – I made a ten year plan and then I didn’t
sleep that night because I cannot envision a life past twenty-four years old.
When I turn twenty-four years old, it will be the end of the world.
Twenty-four isn’t old. Twenty-four is a perfectly good and normal age to be. Twenty
four is the end of the world.
I don’t know why this benchmark exists for me. In all of my diligence and all of my
planning for the future, I never once decided on twenty-four as an end date. I didn’t
plan the end of the world.
I spend a lot of time thinking about the past too. I suppose you could call this the
beginning of the world – although I cannot quite place the moment when light started
shining and Earth started spinning and waves started crashing. But I can tell you when
it stops.
This is not a suicide note. When the big day comes there will be no reckoning. The light
will still shine and the Earth will still spin and the waves will still crash. I will still be a
scratch on the surface of the world.
But I will be twenty-four. And when I turn twenty-four the world will end.
Maybe then I will write another poem and the world will end again when I turn twenty
five.
For now, I will turn twenty-two in seven weeks, five days, six hours, and thirty-eight
minutes.