21 Grams

They say —

you lose 21 grams

of your body weight

the moment you die.

Twenty-one grams.

That’s all it was.

The entirety of your existence,

reduced to less than a handful of bone dust.

Decades, centuries, and ages 

of deluded self-importance —

as individuals,

as a species,

as self-proclaimed gods in flesh.

And for what?

Twenty-one fucking grams.

It’s ironic —

how humans keep believing

they’re too big to fall,

too important to erase.

That the universe must pause

when they speak.

And yet,

all it boils down to

is 21 grams.

Centuries of killing each other

to scream superiority,

millions of lives sacrificed

to feed the bloodlust of genocidal men

playing God

with borders, bombs, and birthrights.

We divide lands and seas

in the name of geography,

then invade them

in the name of history.

We build bridges to fix

the cracks we created,

call it technology,

and pat our own backs, while at it,

for our imagined greatness.

We invent make-believe currencies,

measure meaning in validation begged for like alms,

benchmark worth in slavery roleplaying as ambition —

for 21 grams of gravity

when we’re gone;

the same weight as that of a paper clip.

Do you know what else weighs 21 grams?

A pen cap.

A quarter teaspoon of table salt. 

And

A fist,

half-full of dust.

That —

that is the weight of your legacy.

Of your breath,

your bruises,

your belief

that you ever mattered more

than a fleeting speck

on a dying planet

spinning silently through indifference.

The next time

you consider priding in your greatness,

the next time you tickle your narcissism

with fictional tales of an imagined greatness —

remember:

you matter

exactly as much

as 21 grams would.