Last Night On This Crappy Little Planet
News anchors talk like funeral directors with nice hair
lists of disasters scrolling under their voices while the ads sell us perfect teeth
Some scientist on a podcast says we might have decades
some say less
charts circling the drain right underneath
You read another article at three in the morning about oceans rising and billionaires buying bunkers in countries you will never see
Then you stare at the stained ceiling above your bed and think “if the credits are rolling
where the hell does that leave me?”
You’ve got student loans you will never pay
a kitchen drawer full of menus from places that know your order but not your face
Neighbors who nod in the hall
never knowing you once talked a stranger down from a bridge in a desperate place
You have a playlist saved for bad days, one for sex
one for cleaning
another titled “end of world” you made as a joke
Now it sits there like a dare on your phone screen while the sky outside turns the color of bruise and smoke.
If this is truly the last act for our species
it won’t look like clean explosions and movie speeches filmed from above
It will look like rent still due on the first
laundry piling up, kids going to school
buying flowers for someone you love
Everything ordinary
jammed against the fear that it ends in a kitchen we never took care of.
If this is the last night on this crappy little planet
I do not want to spend it doom-scrolling alone in bed
I want friends on the balcony passing cheap drinks and stories and dumb regrets
smoke and laughter fogging the dread
Play the songs that made us feel invincible when we were idiots
scream the words out the window till the stars go red
Last night on this crappy little planet
if the ship is going down
we are dancing on the deck instead.
I want to kiss you in the stairwell like it is the first and last time
no coy bullshit about seeing where this goes
Tell the truth to the people I still owe apologies
not to clear my conscience, just so they know
I want to call my mother
thank her for every time she showed up when she could have walked away
even when I was a total wreck
Tell the kid in the mirror that being soft was never the sin
that they were not wrong for needing more than a check.
We spent so long pretending we could bargain with the clock
recycle enough, pray enough
hustle enough to beat the rust
Now that the illusion is cracking
the only honest thing left is to love hard
swear loudly, and hold each other in the dust
If the world ends not with a bang but a long tired sigh
at least let it remember that we kept a little trust.
If this is the last night on this crappy little planet
I do not want to spend it doom-scrolling alone in bed
I want friends on the balcony passing cheap drinks and stories and dumb regrets
smoke and laughter fogging the dread
Play the songs that made us feel invincible when we were idiots
scream the words out the window till the stars go red
Last night on this crappy little planet
if the ship is going down
we are dancing on the deck instead.
Maybe tomorrow comes like always
garbage trucks at dawn, hangovers
emails with polite threats about overdue bills
Maybe the planet limps along another century while someone younger and louder takes our place on these hills
Either way
the only regret I want rotting in my chest is not saying how much I loved this stupid
messy ride while I had hands, Not the parties
not the fancy shit
but the nights we split fries at a gas station and laughed so hard we couldn’t stand.
If this is the last night on this crappy little planet
or just another in a long chain of almost ends
I want it full of off-key singing, drunk confessions
hugs that crack ribs
honest fights that turn back into friends
Fuck going out polite and tidy
we came in screaming and we leave with skins and broken amps and texts we finally send
Last night on this crappy little planet
every heartbeat yelling thank you and fuck you to the bitter end.
When they write whatever passes for history about this place
if they even bother to scan it
I hope one tiny line says some of us loved hard as hell on this crappy little planet.