My Apocalypse


The sun passes like a flaming sword overhead, and I feel it as a wound in my chest. Shingle roofs catch fire. Leaves on trees wither. Cars are soon covered in ash. In the days that follow, the sky when I dare to look is a dull orange, the ocean an unpropitious black. The smell of smoke spreads around the world and seeps into people’s food and sleep. “No gods, no masters / The revolution will be kingless,” someone has spray-painted on the bricks. Children on their hands and knees peck at the ground for seeds and insects and adults sniff around like dogs