A Bright New Year

 

An apocalyptic poem by Victoria Grace 

 

 

It was another new year,

 

as soon as it had past, glowed and burned out,

 

it had come.

 

 

Another new year,

 

with old messes finished,

 

fresh ones ready and waiting

 

for the tired,

 

yearning

 

and flat-out tired and numb.

 

 

It was yet again time for things to change,

 

those annoying resolutions would be made;

another year

 

expecting something different,

 

while being at once hopeful and afraid.

 

 

Families throughout the country were gathering,

 

food baking and simmering, pastries and cookies,

 

from pizza to greens--

 

busily swallowing calories and digesting last year's dreams.

 

 

There was an ordinary kind of atmosphere on that fateful night.

The cities were about their business, from New York to L.A., there was the regular

 

bustle, crime and money-changing, the usual love-making and fights.

 

 

 

A woman on Twitter posted funny memes and glittery digital cards,

 

another woman lay alone in her dark living room mourning the husband who left 

 

her, while out the door, he sent his ill wishes and holiday disregards.

 

 

But on the eve of renewal there was a burst, an explosion, in the hearts of men and 

 

women in positions and spaces that most people had rarely considered or sought to 

 

know.

 

 

Death was on the way as the hum of celebration vibrated through sleeping bodies 

 

from broken-down trailers to lavish chateaux.

 

 

It didn't matter that the world had lived since breath, time and birth carrying 

 

humankind's struggle on its back.

 

 

It was just a few kind hours until an invention of man created

 

the void and became man's final attack.

 

 

In the still of slumber and quiet of dawn,

 

the brightness in the sky came not from God's dominion and Mother Nature's gift,

 

but scorched the flesh off bones in moments yet painless and swift.

 

 

The stars as those corpses knew them were exploded memories as ash was the 

 

destiny of destruction the morning broke down to and succumbed.

 

 

Frail, strong, beautiful, innocent, villainous bodies were memories mingled with 

 

that ash, the rest left to malformed generations yet to come.

 

 

The answer to the end wasn't spoken of for years, with remnants of half-alive flesh 

 

who had no time to cling to apparitions and ghosts.

 

 

The business of survival was their moment, the past was the past and futures 

 

couldn't be thought of either, only dirt and grubs stuffed in mouths, while  

 

imagining them as succulent beef roasts.

 

 

Hiding holes were filled with remnants of diseased birth, those who grew up 

 

crawling through forgotten ruins and gnawing on patches of grass.

 

 

There was not much left of the clouds, sky or soul, as long as history was buried and 

 

future mutations came to pass.

 

By the time the last generation came of age, history's remembrance was dead.

 

Then finally, the last two people stood in their coming demise and embraced each 

 

other, weeping at the brilliant orange sunset ahead.