Don’t Spoil It

You don’t have to wait for the end.
We’ll tell you now, right at the start—

It was all just a dream. It was
All in the head. The plot, the storm,

The end of the world, all made up
Of words set up to make you think

Of storms you knew, of the bad things
You’d felt or seen or just been told,

Links to old wars, old plagues, old scenes
Of wrecked towns with no one in them,

That sort of thing. You’d dreamed it, too.
You might have tried to write it up,

Your own tale of a world post-world,
You the last soul left. A small chill.

You can see it now—the cracked streets,
Strange sorts of noise, not one a voice.

There you go. One day you woke up
To find it was you and the world.

When you wake up in dream like that,
You must know it’s all in your head.

Why should we have to tell you that?
You and the world. Get out of bed.