tonight they are calling for the end of the world. it’s no big deal. haven’t you heard? the announcement of the apocalypse turns to static noise in the ears of those for whom the world is not a home, but a playground of profit, dead children, and social cohesion. for the rest of us, we sit in rows. (death sits between me and you like a third person / we remember everything, at least in our bones). you turn on the news, and the screen lights up flicking with blood. there is a body under my bed. it is business as usual. i typed this in a trance. we are all sick. we are all tired. did you not hear me? the world is on fire, and so are you. elon musk lauds over my twitter account. (there is nowhere left to scream). we are all possessed by ghosts, by demons, by monsters. a spectre is haunting: the spectre of afterpay. adani, raytheon and the rest of them too. they enrapture our spirits and disembody us slowly. there are bloodstains all over my carpet. i don’t know where they came from. the channel switches. i can’t remember what it was like to command my own limbs. i watch them disintegrate into dust and choke softly on the smoke they leave behind. (‘all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.’) it is only with you that tomorrow feels possible, feels beautiful, feels worthy at all. can you promise me this? promise me this. when you get there, when you see her, if she’s breathing, if we turned it around, if it’s different this time—will you save me a seat?