WPH_LITERARY_AfterTheApocalypse_BansilRamirez_EsguerraAlbay
Picture of Patricia Bansil

Patricia Bansil

Author

Picture of Jillian Ramirez

Jillian Ramirez

Author

Picture of Alex Esguerra

Alex Esguerra

Graphic Artist

Picture of Jannah Albay

Jannah Albay

Graphic Artist

After the Apocalypse

[2AM]

After

2 in the morning,

With winds that howl, that whisper “you are alone,”

That remind me of doors being swung wide open, 

Inviting me in, amongst the crowd

I have always been excluded from

But cruelty is to be expected

When the ones who surround you are equally as lost,

And so you take your shiftless, sleep-burdened form from

What the mirror has allowed you to envision:

A fractured shell of once-was now reeking of dying remains 

What is it to live die?

In an ignorant, self-serving society

One that never showed respite

Despite every heartache, 

Experience nonetheless, the tantalizing sight of the ark

A solemn testimony to

How harrowing it is to repeatedly grieve over

Something you thought had already died   

Like atoms in the body 

From dead stars of which we are vestiges of

If there is truly rise from the rot, then

Exhume me from the ground up

Try and gild my flesh radiant so that my body would 

Count on the sun to shine ever still brightly the next day

[5PM]

The Apocalypse,

When the world has fallen into a fathomless sleep,

Look for me in these familiar green halls

covered with moss, with ivy that crawls, with fungi,

The life that exists as a form of decay

The people that are more monster than man

In a future where intemperance takes reign

Can a difference truly be made?

Between the grotesque half-rotten creatures and

The heart-tarnished abhorrent man?

Alive in its inhumanity

What is it to die live?

In an insouciant, self-preserving universe

When we who remain are struck by nature’s cruel hand, feel

The barbaric indifference of creation’s flooding deride

Though, the struggle to escape submersion bares 

The desire of the heart to live

Hope;

Perhaps it’s something that never even lived

Neither created nor destroyed

Being descendants of destruction

Is there refuge in our drowning? If that is so

Coax me out of the waters, wake me only soon in the rye to

Rouse and yearn for the same light tomorrow afterwards,

When it is 5 in the afternoon

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