I’d follow love into extinction.
- Ayisha Siddiqa

Been born from so many apocalypses, what’s one more?
Love is still the only revenge. It grows each time the earth is set on fire.
But for what it’s worth, I’d do this again.
Gamble on humanity one hundred times over.
Commit to life unto life, as the trees fall and take us with them.

When I wake up, get out of bed, my seven-year-old cousin with her ruptured belly tags along.
Then follow my grandmother, aunts, my other cousins, and the violent shape of their drinking water.
The earth remembers everything,
our bodies are the color of the earth and we are nobodies.

The future frolics about, promised to no one, as is her right.
But if she leaves without us, the silence that will follow
will be an unspeakable nothing.
What if we convince her to stay?
How rare and beautiful it is that we exist.
What if we stun existence one more time?