{"id":365,"date":"2021-04-14T02:45:15","date_gmt":"2021-04-14T02:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.illinoisstate.edu\/euphemism\/16-2\/?page_id=365"},"modified":"2021-04-28T19:50:16","modified_gmt":"2021-04-28T19:50:16","slug":"an-apocalypse-poem","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/an-apocalypse-poem\/","title":{"rendered":"An Apocalypse Poem"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Ellen Pearson<\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I had a dream I clenched my teeth so tight that my molars cracked and fell out. I remember\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">spitting the pieces into my hand. In my dream, I squeezed my jaw so tight<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">from the stress and pain of losing my molars that all the rest of my teeth cracked into little pieces and I was left with none. Even in dreams, I find myself powerless.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I woke up, I gritted my jaw and was surprised to find my teeth didn\u2019t crack and fall<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">out of my mouth into my cereal.<\/p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the day the world ended, it rained. I\u2019d always expected it to end in fire. To end in screaming,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">crackling, and exploding, torching trees and everything in its wake just like the movies,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">but the world was quiet. No clattering of coffee cups far too early in the morning.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The only sound was the familiar fingers of rain tip tip tapping on our windows.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The only sound was the familiar fingers of rain tip tip tapping on my windows.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The universe didn\u2019t cave in. Allegedly.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The house we built didn\u2019t explode, leaving behind the debris of a life together on the ground. Allegedly. Everything was peaceful, it simply had come to an end.<\/p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I had a dream I was stranded in a strange place alone with no idea how to get home to you.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The world had been reduced to fiction,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">and spiders&#8211; the only bug I have feared&#8211; were my only friend and hope of survival.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I woke up from my nap, a spider crawled across my blanket, and I killed it without fear or mercy, leaving me alone in the tip tip tapping of the rain.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the day the world ended, I refused to go outside, afraid of what I might find. I\u2019m scared of<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">a red wasteland, of which I am the only survivor.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019m scared of everything being fine, just darker now the sun has gone.<\/p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I had a dream the world began again, and that the sun came back. Gnomes and other critters popped their heads out of the earth. I started a new grocery list: waffle mix and carrots and the kind of pasta you like. When I woke up, it was still raining. No need for more pasta.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I baked cookies you don\u2019t like to the tune of the tip tip tapping on my window,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">grateful for the silence at the end of the world.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ellen Pearson &nbsp; I had a dream I clenched my teeth so tight that my molars cracked and fell out. I remember\u00a0 spitting the pieces into my hand. In my dream, I squeezed my jaw so tight from the stress and pain of losing my molars that all the rest of my teeth cracked into&hellip; <a class=\"continue\" href=\"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/an-apocalypse-poem\/\">Continue Reading An Apocalypse Poem<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-365","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":781,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/365\/revisions\/781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}