It is impossible to count the branches on the tree of reality.
Every choice, a new split, a new self.
A new version of me.
And many of these selves are nonsense, degenerate cases.
The versions of me where I choose to swerve into traffic and die instantly aren’t particularly interesting.
We trim these branches from the tree.
Dead limbs.
Dead weight.
I think about them.
The thousand, the trillion.
Each is different.
Many meaninglessly so.
But so many run the gamut of who I am.
A thousand researchers, ten thousand line cooks, a hundred and fifty thousand actuaries.
They span genders, they span sexualities, they span wardrobes and identities.
In the tree there is a single branch.
A single ant swallowed in the vastness of a galaxy.
I see the one who lives that life.
I’ve sworn off jealousy forever.
But I’m jealous of him.