Cozy in the Ruins
The world ended quietly, the way a kettle gurgles before it whistles.
First, the firestorms, then the ash, then the sirens that melted into silence.
And then what remained was soft.
I sit in a house with broken windows but intact curtains,
the lace still filtering a rust-orange light,
as if the sun has agreed to linger at dusk forever.
On the table: one chipped mug, still. warm with chicory brew
I scavenged from a wrecked café, its beans old but fragrant,
the sweetness of survival steeped in bitterness.
Outside, chickadees roost in the husk of a traffic light,
singing like nothing has happened,
their throats tiny engines of ordinary joy.
I wrap myself in a quilt that smells faintly of smoke and lavender,
the patchwork squares stitched by someone’s grandmother,
someone whose name I’ll never know,
but who has cradled me here at the edge of history.
The apocalypse is not all fire, it is also the quiet after.
The streets are emptied of voices but crowded with echoes:
children’s chalk drawings fading on cracked sidewalks,
rusted bicycles leaning against fences,
a teddy bear missing an eye watching over it all.
It should be unbearable, this absence,
and yet in the stillness I find myself exhaling
as if my lungs had been waiting years for such a pause.
I think of comfort differently now.
Comfort is a loaf of bread still edible beneath the mold.
Comfort is finding matches in a drawer,
a flame that blooms steady and blue.
Comfort is the sound of rain on a roof
that may collapse tomorrow but holds tonight,
a lullaby of steady drops against tin and ruin.
Yes, the world has ended, but I am here,
tucking my feet beneath me on a sagging couch,
watching the sky bruise violet then deepen to black,
the stars returning one by one like lanterns left behind.
I sip what warmth I can, listen to the birds,
and hold the quilt closer,
as though even at the end of all things,
someone wanted me to feel safe.
First, the firestorms, then the ash, then the sirens that melted into silence.
And then what remained was soft.
I sit in a house with broken windows but intact curtains,
the lace still filtering a rust-orange light,
as if the sun has agreed to linger at dusk forever.
On the table: one chipped mug, still. warm with chicory brew
I scavenged from a wrecked café, its beans old but fragrant,
the sweetness of survival steeped in bitterness.
Outside, chickadees roost in the husk of a traffic light,
singing like nothing has happened,
their throats tiny engines of ordinary joy.
I wrap myself in a quilt that smells faintly of smoke and lavender,
the patchwork squares stitched by someone’s grandmother,
someone whose name I’ll never know,
but who has cradled me here at the edge of history.
The apocalypse is not all fire, it is also the quiet after.
The streets are emptied of voices but crowded with echoes:
children’s chalk drawings fading on cracked sidewalks,
rusted bicycles leaning against fences,
a teddy bear missing an eye watching over it all.
It should be unbearable, this absence,
and yet in the stillness I find myself exhaling
as if my lungs had been waiting years for such a pause.
I think of comfort differently now.
Comfort is a loaf of bread still edible beneath the mold.
Comfort is finding matches in a drawer,
a flame that blooms steady and blue.
Comfort is the sound of rain on a roof
that may collapse tomorrow but holds tonight,
a lullaby of steady drops against tin and ruin.
Yes, the world has ended, but I am here,
tucking my feet beneath me on a sagging couch,
watching the sky bruise violet then deepen to black,
the stars returning one by one like lanterns left behind.
I sip what warmth I can, listen to the birds,
and hold the quilt closer,
as though even at the end of all things,
someone wanted me to feel safe.
Spring 2026
Gloria Ogo is an American-based Nigerian writer with several published novels and poetry collections. Her work has appeared in Eye to the Telescope, Brittle Paper, Spillwords Press, Metastellar, Gypsophila Magazine, Harpy Hybrid Review, and more. With an MFA in Creative Writing, Gloria was a reader for Barely South Review. She is the winner of the Brigitte Poirson 2024 Literature Prize, finalist for the Jerri Dickseski Fiction Prize 2024, ODU 2025 Poetry Prize, and the 2025 Rhonda Gail Williford Poetry Prize, with honorable mentions. She is also a finalist for Lucky Jefferson's 2025 Poetry Contest. Her work was longlisted for the 2025 American Short(er) Fiction Prize.
Art: Pamela Hobart Carter
While We Listen, 2025
An any-side-up, ink, pastel, and acrylic on (cheap) paper
While We Listen, 2025
An any-side-up, ink, pastel, and acrylic on (cheap) paper