You say you're not the same person that you were ten years ago.
I won't dispute that statement.
The red blood cells in your vessels die every 120 days.
The lining of your gut regenerates every 5 days.
Skin cells rise to the sunlit surface every 39 days.
That face I look upon now did not exist a decade ago
Layers and layers sifting away like sand upon wind
Waxing and waning with each lunar phase
Moon after moon
Blood after blood
Life after life
But let me teach you a little something--
The neurons in your brain last for a lifetime.
Memories do not live or die,
but form in an ensemble of connected neurons
firing together at a sight, a sound, a scent;
And dissolve when the connection grows dormant.
When you were a newborn baby,
you were given a set number of heart muscle cells.
These do not divide
but simply increase in size
As your heart grows larger.
No, I have never seen you before.
But as long as you live, I lay buried within you.
Within this still-beating heart, you have the capacity to love.
Within these gyri, you have the capacity to remember.
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