The End, Twice Over

The sky is still blue, but it feels gray.

The trees stand, the wind moves,

but everything is off-kilter, trembling

at the edges of something breaking.

They said it would be bad after the election and we knew it,

but I didn’t think it would feel like this—

a slow unraveling, the kind of silence

that follows sirens,

the pause before the real damage sets in.

And then, there’s you.

Or rather, the space where you aren’t now—-

the echo of your name in rooms you’ll never enter again. 

But you could. Oh please don’t be gone. This is too much. 

I watch the world fall apart on the news,

but I keep checking my phone for a message from you. A meme. An instagram reel. 

You checking in to make sure I’m ok because this month I feel the furthest thing from that. 

Yeah, maybe you’ll be there for me like you always have been. 

Because everyday I feel like the world is going to end 

but how did our friendship go to that place instead? 

My grief and this global grief

weigh heavy in my chest. 

But one missing voice, yours,

Is a void, the cut of a knife deeper than a nation in flames. 

The world is ending,

twice over.