The End of the World

By Talis Adler

I was told it would start with an earthquake, birds and snakes and aeroplanes,
and instead we’ve got closed doors and capitalist fury and Lenny Bruce would be ashamed.
Politicians drop bombs on us in the form of, “Go back to work, it’s not that bad.”
The economy takes precedence over humanity and people riot in the streets to fight something
they don’t understand.
Parents are dying.
Children are dying.
And all we can do is stay inside, keep the locks turned, try not to lose your mind in solitary confinement.

Tragedy shouldn’t be at this volume;
too quiet, too loud, too much, too empty.
Ghost towns are supposed to be for the dead and there are far too many living here.
It’s the end of the world as we know it,
and I thought it would come with more fire,
but it’s statistics on a screen and numbers that lose meaning when economists ask, “how many
is too many” as another hundred die.

Talis Adler is a third year student at the University of Worcester, where she studies a Joint Honours degree in Creative and Professional Writing, and Screenwriting.   

Early in the pandemic, I took to listening to “It’s the End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) and was very much not feeling fine, and this poem sprang from that feeling, like a pseudo-response to that song.