I.

maybe it was selfish to call this love. but is it greed when all we have is each other?

II.

i watched the world end when i was young;

   where there was light before, now there is silence.

   only hazy after images of the world remained and sometimes,

   you told me it was just a dream to try to stop

   the hurt from ripping at my chest.

   even if it doesn’t work, what does it matter?

   we’re both bleeding out, but at least it’s together.

III.

some nights, we curled together as the wind howled through the empty cities.

          do you think we’d still find each other if the world never ended? i asked;

   under the storm, my voice should have been lost, but you heard me.

   you always hear me.

                   no matter what world we live in, i would always find you.

   smiling is easy, even if i didn’t believe it. but you did, and that was enough.

IV.

imagine this:

   two girls, hand in hand, traversing a wasteland in hopes of finding paradise.

   two girls, in a world ruined, still laughing and singing and loving despite it all.

   two girls,

                       together.

V.

i’ve lost track of the times we’ve nearly died:

           falling through a decayed floor, crashing into concrete twenty feet down,

           ribs cracking,

           pulled underwater by currents and losing air,

           a fever that brought hallucinations of long dead ghosts,

           a world were we shouldn’t have survived to see past its end.

   but still, we push through.

   perhaps a romantic would have called it the power of love;

   i call it desperation.

       a world without you is one where i don’t make it to see the dawn.

VI.

there are days where we don’t wander,

   patching up wounds and pressing kisses to bruises.

   it will always hurt, living in the ending of a story,

   but by your side, it feels like a promise for a new tale.

VII.

you pull my hair back with careful fingers;

                   ready to face the day? you ask.

   i’ve leaned back into your touch and pressed a kiss to your jaw a

   thousand times.

   the movement is ingrained in my bones.

                   so long as you’re by my side, i murmur, i’m ready for anything.

VIII.

maybe this is desperation. greed. loneliness. survival.

   but maybe it’s love too.

   maybe it’s everything and more.

   maybe,

                   it’s you.