Praise For The People At The End Of The World[1]
’akeem
¹ ’bout some months ago,
we lost track of the months.
² ’twas Zeena who told me
the people—
³ ’scuse me, it’s hard to say—
the people will be gone.
⁴ ’tis the real true end
of everything. my god, it take
⁵ ’em all to tell the story,
the people I praise.
⁶ ’ear, if you have ears,
what happened. it’s quiet.
⁷ ’round here was—
we kept our word, it’s quiet
⁸ ’cuz we all that’s left,
& the trees, I want to say—
veronica
⁹ voices! I miss the sound
of fucking people. I’m on the
¹⁰ verge of—I don’t know—
I crunched the leaves to mimic steps.
¹¹ vain as I was, I can’t see
why god kept me here but for
¹² vengeance. I am alone
& don’t love myself in a
¹³ vacuum. I miss my love, we
kept our word though. it’s all
¹⁴ vacant now. you want to know?
I’ll tell you this—all this shit
¹⁵ vanished slowly, but not
by fire or
¹⁶ vices or whatever they told you.
it was us, remember that.
gabi
¹⁷ going back to the beginning,
my mom & me
¹⁸ got the call from talon—
we want to
¹⁹ go out with a bang.
how he knew, I didn’t ask.
²⁰ god, I assume, forgives
when you have a
²¹ good reason. we robbed
the rich. it’s funny,
²² guess what my mom bought first?
a bidet.
²³ giggled the whole way home,
talking ‘bout when they
²⁴ gaze at my body, cold, they should see
my ass in all its glory.
de’man
²⁵ damn, I thought they would
kill us when we started
²⁶ doling out the money. wait,
I want my last words to be
²⁷ different. I’m starting over.
I’ll tell you about
²⁸ dewan, my brother.
even in prison he
²⁹ did what any brother would—
helped me with homework. though I
³⁰ didn’t get the answers
till weeks after in the mail. when he’d
³¹ done his time, he told me
these words:
³² death ain’t shit but freedom, no need
to involve a god.
hunny
³³ here, they’ll ban guns
soon as the person
³⁴ holding one looks like us. hm,
what would you do if you
³⁵ had the money you needed?
I ate. ate till
³⁶ hunger forgot me. I’d been
so long away from full it
³⁷ hurt. we wanted to be
satisfied, that’s what people
³⁸ hunt for, not blood. something
that feels right.
³⁹ have mercy, one of the women
said to me. I’m no god.
⁴⁰ have mercy. while she clutched
her necklace & my stomach growled.
wesley
⁴¹ we kept our word.
we
⁴² wondered what they would do—
come for us? we
⁴³ waited for god & them,
no one came. maybe they
⁴⁴ wanted us to steal from them,
give them some
⁴⁵ way to feel persecuted
or pity. we
⁴⁶ worked so hard
for so little. this is not about
⁴⁷ what they had, we
were told wait wait wait
⁴⁸ when? god,
till when?
zeena
⁴⁹ zealously we lived on
until the money meant
⁵⁰ zilch. there was something
in the air & we watched—
⁵¹ zany theory by theory—people go.
those of us left know soon
⁵² zero of us will remain.
we are undead, not
⁵³ zombified but in the between part
when life is still here but all
⁵⁴ zest for it leaves. we stopped
digging, I don’t move from this
⁵⁵ zone of bodilessness. maybe it means
something to god that our
⁵⁶ zenith came to this—
a spectacular nadir.
chance
⁵⁷ change don’t happen overnight
‘til it does. we think we got
⁵⁸ choices, right? ma used to say to me
you end up where you
⁵⁹ choose to be. who chose for me
to exist? not me, never got the
⁶⁰ chance to choose to not work, to travel,
to spend my
⁶¹ childhood a child.
I can’t control all that’s
⁶² changed on me, just my response
to it & now look. you think all
⁶³ change is by god? or do we
say that cuz we don’t have a
⁶⁴ choice?
huh?
talon
⁶⁵ to everyone who asks I say
maybe god
⁶⁶ told me. I was the first
to know what was coming,
⁶⁷ tasked with spreading the word.
gabi will
⁶⁸ tell you about the bang.
I only wanted the
⁶⁹ tables turned. I lost
so many I stopped
⁷⁰ tallying the bodies, stopped
checking the cribs, tracking
⁷¹ time.
please, if this was a test, god,
⁷² take me soon.
I don’t know what’s true.
yessimi
⁷³ yes, for a moment
the people deserved praise.
⁷⁴ you should have seen it,
before the numbers dwindled
⁷⁵ young people made peace
with god, themselves
⁷⁶ yelled into the night
at their parties
⁷⁷ yanked each other into corners,
forgave their parents. my
⁷⁸ youngest called—
first time in seven
⁷⁹ years—to say I love you.
I’ve made so many mistakes,
⁸⁰ yearned for understanding
& grace came, came knocking.
karla
⁸¹ candlelight. after the end
is a return to the beginning.
⁸² chronologically, it goes—
in terms of loss—electricity,
⁸³ cars, decorum. we saw the end
of law, a glimpse of
⁸⁴ care for others, everyone
fed & without luxury,
⁸⁵ comforted, for a moment,
by sameness. if birds are here, they’re
⁸⁶ keeping quiet, watching us
perish. we
⁸⁷ kept our word, lit candles,
pulled our
⁸⁸ kin
close.
lianne
⁸⁹ look, here’s the truth.
everyone acts so resigned. if you
⁹⁰ listen, you can hear
the heartache. even those who
⁹¹ long for the world to end
don’t want it so. they want
⁹² liberation. they want people
to touch them & their
⁹³ lives to mean something.
no one gains peace from
⁹⁴ loveless silence. god?
god is
⁹⁵ laughing at us. I am angry
& unafraid to admit I’ve
⁹⁶ lost so much & no,
it never gets easier to lose.
maya
⁹⁷ my sister
has lost her
⁹⁸ mind. but before,
she was lively,
⁹⁹ model-type with cat eyes
that could slice you open.
¹⁰⁰ made every day an event. the parties?
sickening. god, she
¹⁰¹ mentioned wanting to be someone
repeatedly, I
¹⁰² mistakenly never told her
she was. so
¹⁰³ many times I could’ve—
I can’t say. I hum her
¹⁰⁴ music I can remember,
sing her songs she knows.
nakaya
¹⁰⁵ need you? no,
I am a god. I’m
¹⁰⁶ not
letting go. I
¹⁰⁷ never
let a broke bitch—
¹⁰⁸ never
would have made it! my
¹⁰⁹ nigga
the
¹¹⁰ night is
still young, you
¹¹¹ nasty, you nasty, what my sister
say? I miss the
¹¹² noise
of everything.
sage
¹¹³ some of us wanted more
from our last days, I’ll
¹¹⁴ say that. there’s so much
I won’t get to
¹¹⁵ see now. I bought
a boat, a small one, to
¹¹⁶ sail to somewhere
unfamiliar, not stress over
¹¹⁷ spending money or time,
let god’s
¹¹⁸ sun brown me further. but alone
as I am I never did
¹¹⁹ surrender a desire for roots
so I’m here, I
¹²⁰ stayed, & anyway
I know nothing about the sea.
knix
¹²¹ psalm for the people:
when I say we, I mean those who
¹²² knew the true cost
of living. we are, all of us,
¹²³ wretched for reasons
we can’t control, though our
¹²⁴ psyches say we must try to pilot
our lives. I grieve even the least
¹²⁵ honest of us, who, though not absolved,
were products of the expectations
¹²⁶ gnawing at their necks. by god, we rioted,
we slept, we succumbed to
¹²⁷ wrought divisions, we
were ambitious, foolishly tracking
¹²⁸ hours as if we
could ever know the time.
prince
¹²⁹ people will mention the loss.
I want to
¹³⁰ point out this moment—
my son, hip-tall, missing teeth,
¹³¹ planted a peony seed
in our garden. I’d explained our
¹³² predicament before, how soon
we will drop, peacefully, like
¹³³ paw paw & maw maw
& that’s alright. I
¹³⁴ prepared to remind him, he then said
it doesn’t need me here to grow. so we
¹³⁵ populated our small land with the rest
of our life. when he went, I
¹³⁶ placed him with god
among the seeds.
tsamuel
¹³⁷ tsk,
I’ve no sob story, no bes-
¹³⁸ tseller to list out for you.
the world is no accident, just craf-
¹³⁹ tsmanship. so is this
& everything else. we’d be collectivis-
¹⁴⁰ ts if evolution equaled
survival, but no, we are too shor-
¹⁴¹ tsighted for anything to last,
including ourselves. I say, we ou-
¹⁴² tsourced too many emotions—happiness,
love, belonging—our descendan-
¹⁴³ ts predestined for demise.
god, if listening, ou-
¹⁴⁴ tstretch
your hands.
quinton
¹⁴⁵ quiet now, but I hear
so many final re-
¹⁴⁶ quests—I need to get right
with god. bury me
¹⁴⁷ quickly. wait. I was & wasn’t
ready for the
¹⁴⁸ queasiness in my throat.
were we correct? a
¹⁴⁹ question for god. though divine input
never comes
¹⁵⁰ quite like you’d think. it was
& wasn’t how I imagined. still, I
¹⁵¹ quell their voices
with baseless hope.
¹⁵² quote me on this:
we kept our word.
re’shawn
¹⁵³ rally the people
hear their cries
¹⁵⁴ ragtag misfits
organize. they
¹⁵⁵ ran us down
with fear & lies
¹⁵⁶ right now we all
reclaim our lives
¹⁵⁷ rise, rise
raise our fists & voices high
¹⁵⁸ refrain from
taking compromise
¹⁵⁹ renounce our choices,
true reprise
¹⁶⁰ rebuild rebuild
till god replies
charlotte
¹⁶¹ shit yeah, I bought
that bidet when we were
¹⁶² sure it would come to
what it came to. always thought I
¹⁶³ should go out in style—
fur, face beat, silk
¹⁶⁴ shirt for comfort, slightly unbuttoned
to convince the
¹⁶⁵ shepherd I was
a good girl. no
¹⁶⁶ shame in wanting to die
fabulous when life
¹⁶⁷ short-changed me.
& why wouldn’t I
¹⁶⁸ show out to greet god? that’s
a once-in-a-lifetime event.
tiny
¹⁶⁹ today it’s quiet
but for the trees, which
¹⁷⁰ taunt their unaffiliation.
life did not begin with
¹⁷¹ two people, but none,
so without us will continue.
¹⁷² tomorrow, no one to remember
my friends, the moments that
¹⁷³ taught us, forgive me,
to come
¹⁷⁴ together, like birthdays & lectures.
imagine! someone devoting a life to
¹⁷⁵ teach what we will all forget. we kept
our word, didn’t attempt to
¹⁷⁶ tamper with anything more, buried
this here capsule of us for you.
[1] This poem takes its form from the biblical Psalm 119, which is an acrostic of the Hebrew alphabet.

Jae Nichelle is a storyteller on the page and the stage. She is the author of the poetry chapbook The Porch (As Sanctuary), and her work has appeared in ANMLY, Best New Poets, Muzzle Magazine, The Washington Square Review, The Offing Magazine, and elsewhere. Her spoken word has been featured by Write About Now, Button Poetry, and the Speak Up Poetry Series. Find out more on her website, www.jaenichelle.com.