By Anindya Arif

You are a transient dream, never lasting,

Unbeknownst to me,
Asking me how long it has taken for me to get here
I am hesitant to tell you how I had to make
A Faustian bargain or how I had to pawn off
My light brick radio that

Only played Velvet Underground
To afford a kayak to get to where you are
When I finally see you in this new hazy moment
At the world's end, in an

’80s-themed cranberry Holiday Inn.
With half-painted walls, wooden window frames
And vignettes of past relationships

Lingering on in the background.
However, all of that right now is inconsequential,
For the alignment of the stars to be perfect,
And the nihilistic waltz they are

Playing at the world's end is just right
And we are here to ruin all of

it by loving the wrong people.

​

Of Late, the days have been forecast,

And it has taken years
For us to reach this soft epilogue,

From the wayward years
From you leaving me with

The taste of death every time
From my frail attempts at trying to

Forget you with abandon and absinthe.
While we are abandoned

By some Gods and saved by others
All of it gets decided at the apex of Styx.

​

You have saved me before
Now it is your turn to hold me back,
So we can keep searching and

Struggling in this decaying world
under a crimson moon,

Trampling over everything
That presaged this cosmic collapse.

​

Free will is our atonement,
And time here is scant, so get on the kayak,

For we are sailing towards Styx.
Hold onto those rusted cockpits

Rims for a while longer,
Styx is not that far along,
Even if you believe happily ever after
is just a tragedy in waiting
The colours have already blended in Styx

​

And there is no need to say goodbye right away for
We are wearing the shade black;

All the colours have blended into.
Siphon whatever rhubarb and

Ginger gin is left on the tankard.

​

While you hang back under Orion,
I will read you, Turgenev, whom you have

Always found comfort in.
And we will slow dance under the

Debauchery and the crimson moon,
As our histories blur into the decades

Forthcoming and behind.
but I promise to notice the remaining few

Times the world rotates without you.
We only exist so we have someone with

Whom we can take shelter when it rains.
And your pictures in my room are regal and proud
Inside Argentium silver frames.
What is paramount right now is not
Whether or not we can make it past

Styx into eternal elation
Instead, we were naive, and

Everything else around us was hell.
In the wake of the end of the world
I will not let you down when it is ruined.

​

This is it, the story we

Will kill ourselves with
The memories will be ours, too,

For now, forever.

The world has not ended yet,
It will not for ages
The Gods have not abandoned us
In this nebulous gleam.
The path ahead is not long or

Unceremoniously difficult
Even if it were
Then it would only give

Us more time together.