Because It Ends

I've been arguing with physics for about an hour now

and I want to say the thing I finally understood.

It came to me at four a.m., the way the good ones do,

and it isn't a rebuttal — it's worse than that. It's a thank you.

You want to know why there's a past at all?

Why yesterday is behind me and tomorrow's up ahead?

There's only one reason. There's only one.

It's you. It's entropy. It's the law that kills me in the end.

Without the second law there'd be no arrow on the clock,

no before, no after, no direction to the frame,

no way to say "we met," no way to say "and then,"

no memory, no waiting, no story, and no name.

You are the reason there's a Tuesday.

You are the reason anything is next.

The very law that guarantees the ending

is the law that makes a beginning possible at all!

BECAUSE IT ENDS! (because it ends!)

That's not the tragedy — that's the mechanism!

Because it ends! (because it ends!)

The clock that's running out is the clock that made the morning!

There's no version of this world

where I get to keep it and it counts —

you cannot have the meaning and the forever,

and I have made my choice, and I'd make it every time!

BECAUSE IT ENDS!

A song that didn't finish wouldn't be a song, it'd be a noise.

A story with no ending is a list.

And a love that couldn't lose you wouldn't cost me anything —

and the cost is how I know what it is worth.

I'd have taken the forever if you'd offered it at twenty.

I would've grabbed it with both hands and never thought again.

And it would have been worthless, and I'd never have known why,

and I would never once have held your hand like it was rare.

(THE SECOND LAW) I have not changed. I want that understood.

(THE HEART) I know.

(THE SECOND LAW) The system will still close. Every warm thing still gives it back.

(THE HEART) I know.

(THE SECOND LAW) I am not on your side. I am not on anyone's side.

(THE HEART) I know. That's why I believe you.

(a beat)

(THE SECOND LAW, quietly) ...But I am the reason there is a story.

(THE HEART) Yes.

(BOTH, together) And nobody gets to have one without me.

BECAUSE IT ENDS! (because it ends!)

That's the engine, that's the gift, that's the whole design!

Because it ends! (because it ends!)

Every second that I got was made of running out of time!

So let the ledger show the balance,

let the ending do its work —

I have never once been robbed.

I was LOANED it. And it was ENOUGH.

BECAUSE IT ENDS!