CariAnn Freed

Living, Loving and Surviving in a Post Apocalyptic America

CariAnn Freed

March.

In my small apartment on the southside of the city I woke up to the apocalypse. Death to life before You and Death to life after.

April.

Waking up to love is almost better than falling asleep in it. I hope they never find us.

May.

Who are You if not magic, if not lightening— I’ll follow You into every tomorrow.

June.

My world split like tectonic plates, A Black lava came bubbling between them like violent, like war— Like too dark to make nice

Too violent to live within the Earth, Too fluid to be captured Too angry for sorry Through clouds of smoke and red flash I saw you

smiling, I heard your laugh, But post apocalyptic America is nasty, Busted up and bleeding black blood all over When I look at me I see my mother’s arms all the way to my hands, Her nose, plus my grandma’s cheeks.

After the explosion of June I’m here shaking in July,

There’s a pile of dishes in the sink, When I pass through the kitchen I can hear my father say, “Just get it done,”

But I’ll go back to bed and stare at the closet where A powder pink dress hangs from a wedding I never made it to,

My first friend, she taught me how to laugh She never let me think I wasn’t cool,

Now the sound of her giggle burns slow between the bubbles and the black, I think I’m saving the powder pink fabric just in case another war

breaks out, I’ll use it as a dressing in case we ever get caught in the crossfire

August. In post apocalyptic America I found love and loss. Now we wake up everyday and choose each other.

Even if it’s different now, Even if it hurts, Even when it bleeds.

I choose You because we have hopes and dreams that are bigger than diamonds Bigger than disaster, Bigger than Truth

Bigger than my small apartment on the southside

I fell in love underneath all the city, Beneath the brimstone, and the asphalt, Beneath the darkness and into the self

At the heart of the center, the deepest of depths

The black and the bubble.