The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

by Franny Choi

Aaron Says the World Is Upside Down and it’s true, the cops are shooting rubber bullets at even the blonde journalists now; the Target is on fire, and the Wells Fargo’s shining face kicked in by white boys with gas masks and hammers trying to jump-start their war—and yet, the upside-down world is also, by definition, the same world, like the map that hung in the hallway of the house where I lived three or four lives ago, Argentina at the top, Greenland kissing its toes; it was a metaphor, someone explained, for seeing things another way—so yes, if it is true that another killer cop’s killed another Black child’s father, another “unauthorized” choke- hold, another no charge again, if once more riot gear again budget once again gas station, more flames, more who’s to blame gets blamed again if again and again it is the same—then it holds that the opposite must also be true: the so-called opposite world of food drop-off stations, of phone trees, of bailouts and carry an extra mask, the world of kneeling for a stranger’s gift of milk to flush the tear gas, the world of saying a thing in unison so clear it drills a hole through to the other side of what’s possible, so clear and wholly inverted, we realize it’s been here all along: O kingdom of fire, O kingdom of food, with the same mouth we take your blessings; with the same mouth we pronounce you come.