Five hundred
The number of snowflakes I caught on my tongue
When I was five and it snowed
And how many breaths I took in 26 minutes — I counted them
5 hundred games my brothers and I played
When we were young and we didn’t have 500 worries
The same number as the times I’ve tapped my pencil
Hoping for 500 words of inspiration to appear on that paper
Half a thousand words, containing a trillion thoughts
The sentences tying them tight like a gift
To give to a man who won’t know my name
500 words
To sum up a life