What’s the Matter

your baby asks you if the people that were murdered believed in God if the universe was supporting their highest good if they had faith or if they meditated or prayed ( )
there are calculated spaces between each teenage breath like steps or chess moves or loading bullets & he says to you what determines which line you are in//the one that matters or doesn’t matter & how do you know if you are in the mattering one or does it even matter//mass atoms protons neutrons stars gas dust// he wants to know if maybe he’s just an ancient star that’s gonna get eaten up by the weight of the world as a black hole thriving if he will do all the right things then die if he will do all the wrong things then die if he will do nothing then die if he will do everything then die & he gets so frustrated he sucks his perfect teeth & says to you it doesn’t matter (anyway) that he heard a song that said all we are is dust in the wind & he grabs his face to say he feels blown over like a blade of grass underneath a shiny new lawnmower