An EOL Poetry Series

A series of poems based on the lump of human love left as everything ends.

I said, "I love you."

She didn’t flinch.
She didn’t soften.
She didn’t even smile.

She said, “I know.”

And maybe that was enough.

Maybe that’s what it means when two people have weathered something so big, so unspeakably final, that the words we once held sacred become as empty as the skies above us now.

I said, "I love you too."

We sat there, side by side, in the ghost of what used to be a home. Dust catching the last of the afternoon light, floating like memory in the air. The world outside had quieted. No engines. No birdsong. No hum of distant life. Just wind and whatever thoughts we hadn’t buried yet.

We were surrounded by all of it—the ruins, the stillness, the ache.
And somehow, I still meant it.

I love it. All of it.
Even this. Even now.

It’s strange, what you cling to when there’s nothing left to grasp.

…

“You know we’re all going to die.”

That’s what she said. No drama. No fear. Just fact. A statement carried like breath. Something we’d known, but had finally allowed ourselves to speak aloud.

I turned my head slowly, watching her lips close around the silence.
And I said the only thing that made sense.

“The moment we’re born, we are.”

That line—it didn’t belong to me. I’d heard it somewhere, maybe in a book or a film or some philosophy class I barely stayed awake in. But in that moment, it was mine. Ours. It was truth. And it was useless.

Because it doesn’t matter how much you know about the fragility of life until you're standing on its last trembling breath.

…

The Silence That Followed

It wasn’t peaceful.

It wasn’t the soft, gentle quiet that follows understanding.
It was the kind that grips your ribs and won't let go.
The kind that tastes like copper and regret.
The kind that says, This is it.

And we both heard it.
Even though we didn’t say a word.

I wanted to ask her what she really meant.
Did she mean us?
Did she mean the world?
Did she mean the unspoken realization that we weren’t survivors—we were leftovers?

I didn’t ask.
Because I knew.

…

Is There Anybody Left But Us?

It’s a question I’ve asked every morning since it happened. Whatever it was.
The end.
The collapse.
The unraveling.

We never got a name for it.
Was it war?
Disease?
The climate finally taking back what we refused to give?
Maybe it was everything. Maybe it was nothing.

All I know is—one day the world was loud, and the next, it wasn’t.

We’ve been walking through its echo ever since.

And still—still—every time I look at her, I wonder:

Are we the last?

I want to believe there’s someone else out there. A hidden pocket of breath.
A child whispering stories in the dark.
A man cooking beans over a flame, counting the stars to remember what hope felt like.
But we haven’t seen a soul in weeks.
No smoke. No signs. No noise.

Just her.
Just me.
Just silence.

…

Then Came the Sound

It came when I’d given up wondering.
When I was ready to let my thoughts rot in the corner like everything else we used to call future.

The slap.
Of bare feet.
On wood.

Slap. Slap. Slap.

It was rhythmic. Alive.
And for a second, I thought I was hallucinating.

Then—laughter.

Real, unfiltered, belly-deep laughter.
Child-laughter.
Like the universe had just remembered how to smile.

They ran down the hallway—three of them, maybe four. Blurs of motion and joy.
Their feet pounding the floor, their arms swinging wild.
Their voices crashing like waves against the hollowed-out bones of this place.

And we just watched.
Frozen.

They didn’t look at us.
Didn’t ask who we were.
Didn’t seem to care.

They filled the rooms with something I hadn’t felt in months: life.

…

The Last Human Joy

I don’t know where they came from.
I don’t know where they went.

It was over in a breath.
But that breath was holy.

They reminded me of what we used to be.
What we could’ve been.
The lightness we once wore so casually, like a summer shirt we never thought we’d lose.

And then they were gone.
And the silence came back.
But this time, it was different.

Not heavier. Not lighter.
Just… changed.

Like it had been touched.
Woken up.
Stained with something beautiful and temporary.

…

I Wanted to Cry

Not because I was sad.
But because I remembered what it felt like to feel.

When you live at the end of the world, most of your emotions get packed away.
It’s a survival thing.
You don’t get to mourn every loss.
You’d never stop.

But in that moment—watching those kids, watching her eyes widen just a little, watching my own hands tremble—I remembered that we are not machines.

We are skin and blood and heartbreak and joy.
And we are here.
Still.

…

So What Now?

I don’t know.

Maybe we really are the last.
Maybe the kids were ghosts.
Maybe we’re ghosts.

Maybe the world is still burning just beyond the hills and we haven’t smelled the smoke yet.
Maybe that was the last laugh.
The last moment of light.

Or maybe—
maybe it was a beginning.

Maybe joy doesn’t care about endings.
Maybe it just wants to exist, once, brilliantly, before it dies.

And maybe that’s enough.

…

I Love You. Still.

I look at her now and wonder if I’ve ever really known her.
Not in the way that people “know” each other in coffee shops and bedrooms and wedding vows.
I mean known.

Like the way you know the sky is there even when it’s dark.
The way you know your own heartbeat without ever hearing it.
The way you know grief is love that’s lost its home.

She’s not just the last person I love.
She’s the last proof that love was ever real.

And when I say, "I love you,"
I don’t mean in the poetic, Hollywood way.
I mean in the God, I hope we’re not alone way.
In the thank you for not dying yet way.
In the if this is the end, I’m glad it’s with you way.

…

Final Thought

If someone finds this—this journal, this letter, this echo—I hope you understand something:

We weren’t just waiting to die.
We were remembering how to live.

Even when there was nothing left.
Even when we were certain the story was over.

Because in the middle of all that darkness,
children ran.
And they laughed.
And for one flicker of a heartbeat—
we did too.