THE WORLD WILD END TOMORROW
- Mar 14
- 1 min read
By Lena Mante
I made a bet with Pascal
that you exist. Yet I was wrong.
This appearance is the most infernal salvation,
and repetition: the most merciless lesson,
after which you never learn anything.
That’s why you are given the freedom
to walk the same roads, to drive the same hospital-white car,
to be a servant to the same meaningless gestures.
To drag a body, seething with hope for life:
back and forth, back and forth, back and forth,
while outside the world remains asthmatically the same:
houses, trees, streets, buildings, from one landslide to another
and again: houses, trees, streets, buildings,
sometimes sidewalks.
But you’ll get used to it, I’m telling you, you’ll get used to the horror.
And only at night, when the windows exhale your breath,
when the ceiling bends like a galaxy above your head,
something will bleed from your fingertips,
something will howl at the dead in your chest,
will paint crystals with your breath.
But you’ll get used to it, I’m telling you, you’ll get used to the horror.
And only from time to time, you’ll forget your child at daycare,
you’ll pour tomato sauce into the washing machine,
you’ll stack your clothes in the fridge:
but still just as carefully,
still just as meticulously,
still as if something
continues.