The Soft Apocalypse

The Soft Apocalypse

The world did not explode on cue or split along its spine;

It frayed in little tender ways—like yours and sometimes mine.

Not fire from the silver screen, no horsemen, no stampede,

just headlines wilting on the phone and hearts that rarely feed.

¤

The coffee shop still spelled your name a letter out of place.

The train still came, a minute late, with yesterday’s same face.

The sky forgot its villain arc and settled into gray.

While group chats typed “you good?” in loops that never learned to stay.

¤

Our endings came in quieter forms: the text we didn’t send,

the “seen at 4:03 P.M.” that never got to mend.

The ice caps melted into ads; the protests turned to threads;

We scrolled through floods and fires alike from unmade, glowing beds.

¤

Yet even as the big decay kept humming overhead,

I saw a man share half his lunch, and a kid read books in red.

A neighbor left fresh bread downstairs, no note, just simple proof

that kindness is a slow revolt against a caving roof.

¤

The soft apocalypse is this: a thousand smaller tears,

a playlist full of soothing noise to tuck away our fears,

but also mugs passed hand to hand, and strangers holding doors,

and someone learning how to cook instead of counting wars.

¤

If something ends, it might be loud; if something lives, it’s this—

a plant repotted on the sill, a clumsy, earnest kiss.

We may not save the staging lights or fix each ruptured seam.

But we can warm this single room and guard each other’s dream.

¤

So when the feed declares collapse in fonts of doom and ink,

I’ll turn it down, I’ll wash a plate, I’ll stand with you and think

That maybe what survives the crash is not the grand but the small:

Two hands that learn to stay and build when systems start to fall.