Nothing in the universe is new, we’ve all been here forever.

Nothing’s new.

It’s a pretty well-known fact; a pretty standard thing to be taught in eighth-grade science.

The law of conservation of mass. 

It’s scientific, it’s practical, it makes perfect, practical sense if you think about it for the three minutes it takes your science teacher to explain it.

No matter can be created or destroyed, no matter has ever been created or destroyed.

On the surface, this fact is perfectly plausible and easy to understand.

It’s a simple concept, but it’s possibly the least inconsequential thing I have ever learned in my entire life.

The amount of matter in the universe has been constant since the Big Bang. 

Nothing’s new.

In all the eons, all the eras, all the periods, ages, and centuries, and decades, and days, we have gained nothing. We have lost nothing. 

And I have been here for all of it.

The universe is a kaleidoscope that has been twisting and twisting and turning itself in knots for billions of years, and there hasn’t been a second that I’ve missed.

40,000 years ago, early humans painted hands on the walls of caves, and on Thursday I watched a child finger paint. 

I watched him place his sticky hands on the sheet of paper and I saw the kaleidoscope turn a little more. 

I lay on the floor of my English classroom, the floor built from the dust made with dust from the pyramids and the ash of the library of Alexandria, and deja vu is soaking through my skin.

I’ve been here before, I’ve been lying on this English classroom floor for my whole life.

Nothing’s new.

The hands braiding my hair, the girl sitting next to me in Algebra, the back-right corner of my desk, the tree I pass on my bus ride to school, and never anytime else.

I’ve been doing this forever.

I’ll be doing this forever.

The sun is slanting through my windows, and it’s snowing in October, and the flowers on my shelf are dry and cracking and they’re all made out of stardust and Cleopatra’s breath and for some reason, I can’t see the world the same anymore. 

Sometime in 1511, Michelangelo laid on his back, staring at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and let out an exasperated sigh; yesterday, I breathed in that breath while putting on my Halloween costume. 

My life is overrun with deja vu, the universe is drowning under the weight of recycling matter over and over and over.

The kaleidoscope has been twisted so many times, twisted to the point of shattering, and it is beautiful.

When I die, I will be put in the ground and my corpse will fertilize the flowers that will end up under some child’s window, in that, I find peace.

In that, I am immortal.