This is Not the End of the World

after Neil Hilborn

 

I’ve been hearing that the world is ending

Mostly from a voice slightly different from my own

Whispering in my left ear

Right behind the eardrum

I’ve heard it so much these days I can either

Accept the dread or find a way to pay for my medication

There is nothing but endings in both

Of this version of me who stalks their own mind

Who sees their next meal 

And watches it smile back in the reflection

Who wonders what it is like to be calm

To be empty

To live and breathe

Without the future running nails down their back