The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

by Franny Choi

I was born from an apocalypse and have come to tell you what I know—which is that the apocalypse began when Columbus praised God and lowered his anchor.

Sixty-six million years after the last great extinction, six to eight business days before the next one,

stories stuffed so full of morals they bleed sugar.

Try not to time travel, says the voice in my meditation app, as I fast-forward to everything I haven’t yet remembered to be afraid of—

Imagine a version where Black children, too, can be children, make mistakes, still anticipate grace.

What I want you to know is that we’re okay. Hurting but okay. We’re surviving, though it’s true, we don’t know what that means, exactly.