The End of the World is Less Dramatic

You never thought the end of the world would look like this,

so normal as if yesterday was an illusion.

You are desperate to prove it, offering tears and hiding behind silence,

as if no one will believe you if there isn’t something to show for it,

an offering of suffering.

You look at yesterday like news on the t.v.,

so far away you can pretend it will be forgotten by the next headline,

but for you the world is ending and teeters on the breath of your chest.

When you were a kid, you swore to yourself that

you would never forgive them in the morning,

going to bed hot headed, cheeks sticky with proof.

You swore you wouldn’t eat breakfast,

a protest of pain somehow you only ended up feeling,

replacing one hunger for another.

But you were always too weak, or too strong,

or too kind to hold onto anger,

because when you grew up, you swore to yourself that

you would never let the world callous you in the way you knew how to.

You never thought the end of the world would look like this,

but you always knew that it would begin again with you.