In the beginning,
after the collapse became
inevitable, no alien hand
reaching in to stop it,
we kept using words like
“awakening” and “rebirth,”
but no one really wanted that
if it meant things would look
truly different.
In the beginning,
after the birds fell silent
and the seas turned gray
and hopeless, after we began
to notice the voice
of flatline in the wind,
people said that was a song,
a new song, and it would be
alright sooner or later —
but none of them were singing
and that should have been a clue.
In the beginning,
once it had become clear
that hope would be a mistake
unless it was a hope of complete
erasure and restart, we kept at it
with chants and the like
for a time. We did all
the small things
we were asked to do even after
it became obvious it wasn’t going
to be enough.
In the beginning,
we sat in the ruins
of the time before
and did all the same things
and hated all the same people
and shit in the same holes
we’d always filled with our shit
before. We looked with disfavor
upon what we’d wrought and then
wrought it again in a slightly
cleaner form until the true beginning
took us away from it and put us
in the garbage by ourselves
to dwindle as the new day began
to brighten and there we stayed until
finally we were gone.
