You want to know what being dead is like? No?
Ahhh, you want to know what it is like to die, then. Yes,
But why do you ask about what you already know?
If it is only a loss of self that you fear, that familiar Dread of
The unknown, being not-you, then why do you fear?
What can you say, after all, is truly, unchangeably You?
The person you are today may go unrecognized
By the person you are tomorrow.
You die a little, every day- not a death by inches, more and more lost
Until none is left.
I mean Death-and-Rebirth. A hundred times in a life.
They say you can never go back again. Ever wonder why
That's so? Because you can go back, but it's not you.
With every new experience, every
Bit of knowledge gained, every
Change with time- the old you dies.
Pick up a book, one that has gone years unread by you.
Fine changes will leap out at you from the new-turned pages.
Have the words changed? Did it rewrite itself
As it sat gathering dust on your shelf? No.
It's you who has been written over. Reading,
You remember what it felt like, what it meant.
But it's different now, the experience.
You still remember yourself, but as a child, grown,
Looks back on its parents.
Why fear Death, then? It's only a last change,
A sealing of your final incarnation, end to
The little deaths.