I know the end
by Karah Kemmerly
wednesday the bay glows orange & we make pancakes in a nightmare-
dark apartment, the sun blotted out by an unnatural haze—a block of smoke
lofted, says the news, over the morning marine layer. it wasn’t safe
even to visit. hanne bought me a solo compartment & I mostly never left
it. wrapped myself in a hand-me-down shirt & read through southern oregon,
then slept on the cot in hour-long bursts as california shuddered through
my window. when we crossed the sacramento at dawn, I stopped pretending
to sleep. took photos of the zombie sun & played that phoebe bridgers song
on repeat, screaming silently into the steam off my coffee. maybe homecomings
are always apocalyptic. or maybe it’s just me. I was born between burning season
& the big flood, a tiny walking volcano. at my first high school dance—veronica
sawyer—the bombthreat kid chose me. plus my earliest memories are all evacuation—
the mazda crammed with suitcases, a snake of sedans on the freeway crawling south.
just days before the smoke came, hanne & I drove to the sea. she walked out
& dove under while I sifted through hot sand for agates. now it’s winter—snowing
ash. we pull on boots & masks to walk to the mailbox, throw long sleeves on
over our pjs to ward off the unnatural chill. to me it feels like trick-or-treating—
too-big jackets covering our costumes, that eerie jack-o-lantern smolder, crowds
of strangers gawking at a sunrise turned into dusk. growing up I loved halloween
but hated the masks. what scared me was seeing my classmates indistinguishable,
their voices muffled underneath cheap plastic. I’m still afraid every change
will become permanent. as a kid, I imagined our house underwater. watched
the furniture float around me as I swam from room to room. now I try
to run as if catastrophe can’t catch me. return every fall like a haunting.
Karah Kemmerly (she/her) is a queer writer who grew up in northern California and completed an MFA in poetry at Oregon State University. Her work has been published in Redivider, DEAR, Breakwater Review, and Watershed Review. She lives and teaches in Portland, Oregon with a growing collection of plants.