Another day, the red sun rises
crimson beams cut through the gloom,
it’s hard to breath when
dust blows in my eyes, lost particles
but to sweeten the morning
I escape to the old world
long gone, somewhere out of reach.
I claw back to the aroma of cinnamon buns—warm and sticky
toilet paper, the garden in bloom, birdsong.
Hoofing it across town to the Saturday matinee
with a boy and hopes of a first kiss.
After, around the kitchen table with my family (blended), music (Adele-Hello), full plates (mac’n’cheese) and happy voices arguing about whose turn it was to put the garbage out and the time we got lost driving to the beach and whether it’d be more humiliating to wear dirty clothes or not wash our hair for a week.
Now the streets are barren, plane shadows passing on twisted pavement,
dark hours, the chorus of empty stomachs
how were we to know
it would end like this?
I flinch from the question.
there are so many ways to
be angry but
I’m good at survival—most days
my body decaying, my voice whispering
dreams to the dirt.
A mouse scurries over the earth’s scars
to dig a hole to forget
and I follow to drop in a seed,
we are not dead yet and the flowers will come
because there is a point in growing something to
prove we care and
I will love again.
‘Last Girl Standing’ was a response to a call out from Bunker Squirrel Magazine, who requested submissions on an ‘end of the world/post-apocalyptic’ theme. Having never written about this topic before, this was a challenge for me. Yet I tried to balance the gloom while offering a glimmer of hope. Thanks to Tori Westminster and the editorial team for including it in the inaugural 2025 magazine.