Martyr//Monster

By Aniah “AJ” Johnson

when you get the news that the world is ending, nothing will change
because you have never changed. you will sit in the dark, hunched in
front of your television, the blue light burning your corneas as you read
the same words over and over again. you will feel sad, small, and alone,
but that matters little because you always feel sad, small, and alone. you
are a man stuck on an island that you inadvertently created, you dug a
moat and did not see how far its waters extended, but it is too late to
swim across to the adjacent shore, there is a shark in the water, there are
piranhas, and no one is coming to save you. no one can love a shark and
therefore no one will love you. you are the shark, you are the water, you
are the island, you are the man, and you are impossibly, incredibly alone.
you are the princess and you are the dragon but you will never be the
knight because you don’t think you have the strength to save yourself.
you don’t think you can pull excalibur out of its stone so you will not try.
you don’t think you can slay a dragon, so you will not bother. you are the
witch, you are the apple, and you are snow white. you are not the prince,
nor is there any prince, because they know you not as the fair maiden,
but as the ugly crone. this is only the fault of your own, such as
everything else, and you acknowledge this truth. you’ve nailed yourself to
the cross, but no sins will be forgiven for this self-indulgent
self-sacrifice. you will forever be the monster, you will forever be the
martyr, you will forever be the poison, you will forever be doomed.

when you get the news that the world is ending you will not be shocked.
you will lazily lift your hand and power down the television. you will
crawl back under your covers and stare at your ceiling, for you are the
meteor hurtling toward earth, just as much as you are the earth, just as
much as you are the people panicking at their death sentence. you are
small, sad, alone, and doomed, but you know this.

you reap what you sow, and the sickle is fused to your hand.

Aniah “AJ” Johnson is a queer (any pronouns) high school student. Having begun reading at the age of 2, she’s had a lifelong love with the intricacies of language as a tool and artform. Though she enjoys writing in all forms, she’s always had a fondness for poetry and prose. Outside of her penchant for reading and writing, AJ enjoys astrology, entomology, theatre, and fueling her ongoing Badtz-Maru obsession.