Soft Apocalypse

You make jokes like drawn curtains With the sunrise trapped behind You say, “I’m fine,” like it’s a language You invented just to hide You keep your hands inside your sleeves Like wanting has a cost Like every time you reach for something Something else gets lost But I have seen the light in you When you forget to guard the flame And I have loved the quiet parts You never thought to name You’re my soft apocalypse My world ends where your mouth begins Not with fire, not with violence Just your hand beneath my ribs And I don’t fall, I come undone Like dusk becoming candlelit Loving you is not destruction It’s a soft apocalypse You build whole worlds from aching Give your ghosts somewhere to sleep You turn longing into story Just to make the wound less deep You are tender like a warning You are sweet but not unarmed You don’t ask to be protected But I still memorize your scars And I don’t need you brighter I don’t need you less afraid You don’t have to make yourself smaller Just to fit the love I gave You’re my soft apocalypse My world ends where your mouth begins Not with fire, not with violence Just your hand beneath my ribs And I don’t fall, I come undone Like dusk becoming candlelit Loving you is not destruction It’s a soft apocalypse If the sky comes down, let it If the stars burn out, let them go I have found you in the after In the hush below the smoke If the old world breaks between us If the light goes strange and blue I will crawl through every ending Just to end up next to you So be too much Be not enough Be sharp, be shy, be scared, be rough Be every storm you swallow down I’ll love the thunder when it comes You’re my soft apocalypse My world ends where your mouth begins Not with fire, not with violence Just your name against my skin And I don’t fall, I come alive Like ruins learning how to bloom Loving you is not destruction It’s the world remade by you So let it end Let it begin Let the dust rise where we kiss I was only surviving Till your soft apocalypse