substack
(p.s. drag me!!!!!)
Doomsday
Two times this year
it had been her. Shift-
shattered all the known embers
on Earth. She had plucked each individual
rosary bead from its stem, placed them
in acetone for renewal. It was terribly
exhausting work, the upkeep of it all.
She was the person who donned
high priestess gear and went cajoling
on Hollywood Boulevard. In the grainy
late-night ads, the ones paid for
by small or dying companies, the ones
with lawyers advertising hair gel
and orange veneer, there were prayers
said. She knew the mysticism
of the every-day, traced the Latin
in seagull screams. Now, a quietude
settled upon the city, and no one
seemed to be interested in the pamphlets
she had to offer. When nothing
was happening was when something
was wrong. The physics of it all
seamlessly organized within the arena
of her brain during the pitch black
night, when medieval orders could be
elucidated through the paint thinning
of the walls, or astronomical
end-dates were deduced within
the shut-eye of her leaky faucet. She
liked when things finally made sense,
in this way. When outside was scary,
unknowable, nonsensical, and doused
with a kind of realism so precise,
cartoon-ish, even: that was when dark
became safe. It was in the dark
where she could coax chaos, something
knowable, the shadows on the ceiling
undulating with such familiarity, utterly
rational, and completely hers. It was here
that she embraced and knew who she was,
knew that she was destined, chosen, even,
for something very important.
shattered all the known embers
on Earth. She had plucked each individual
rosary bead from its stem, placed them
in acetone for renewal. It was terribly
exhausting work, the upkeep of it all.
She was the person who donned
high priestess gear and went cajoling
on Hollywood Boulevard. In the grainy
late-night ads, the ones paid for
by small or dying companies, the ones
with lawyers advertising hair gel
and orange veneer, there were prayers
said. She knew the mysticism
of the every-day, traced the Latin
in seagull screams. Now, a quietude
settled upon the city, and no one
seemed to be interested in the pamphlets
she had to offer. When nothing
was happening was when something
was wrong. The physics of it all
seamlessly organized within the arena
of her brain during the pitch black
night, when medieval orders could be
elucidated through the paint thinning
of the walls, or astronomical
end-dates were deduced within
the shut-eye of her leaky faucet. She
liked when things finally made sense,
in this way. When outside was scary,
unknowable, nonsensical, and doused
with a kind of realism so precise,
cartoon-ish, even: that was when dark
became safe. It was in the dark
where she could coax chaos, something
knowable, the shadows on the ceiling
undulating with such familiarity, utterly
rational, and completely hers. It was here
that she embraced and knew who she was,
knew that she was destined, chosen, even,
for something very important.