A Sign of the Times

art by Gloria Sung, words by Vaidehi Bhardwaj

midnight

or, in the ninety seconds it takes to realize you are in the blast radius

edenic clouds gather on the far horizon. sun can’t shake them loose. on a morning much like this did it all begin— only fitting that it would end here too. same axial tilt, same ham fist tightening its grip around the world.

something glass, something iron. something burning hot and dark— profane and paradisiacal in the way only a divinity can be. 

no tether exists now, embedded in the ozone.

begin from this premise and move outwards from the eye of the hurricane, away from the singularity chaining every nebulus in the galaxy to the other—

tilting back far enough, what is there to be found? 

perhaps the universe contained in your pupil, a singularity all its own. something tangible this time around— an eden sans the threat of exile, beyond the watchful eye of god.