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Every Story
Every story has been told before,
Every life has been lived.
Every light has shone bright,
Then dim,
Then burned out.
Every bed has been slept it,
And every shirt worn.
Every cup has held water.
Or coffee.
Or rum.
Every building’s collapsed,
Or been left there to rot,
And every sidewalk’s been traveled
In the light
And the dark
And even the new things,
That have never been walked,
Never shone,
Never cracked,
Never rotted or worn
They are all copies
Of some original thing,
That thing, lost in time,
Made again
And again
So everything has,
At some time or another,
Been done before,
Made before,
Existed as a first
Every thing has been said,
Every question been asked.
There is nothing new left
To tell
Or to answer.
So when all has been done,
When all newness seeps away,
The old
Must become
Novel
I went to a bookstore in Kansas City once where the shelves, walls, floor, and ceiling were covered in little graffitied messages. The one I remember the best was, "When everything's been said, what is there left to say?" scribbled on the side of a bookcase.
To which I responded, "Anything."