Yellow Mama E zine

Until I Am

 

by Christopher Hivner

 

trails of fire

lighting the sky

 

the last night

for all of us

 

sirens pierce our ears

Klaxons announcing our demise

 

the explosions don’t stop

the noise won’t stop

 

we cower in the corners

the darkness a blanket providing no warmth

 

we don’t even know

who is killing us

 

I hear screams from next door

everyone is running

 

I don’t know how to help

there’s nowhere to go

 

the television is dead

the internet is dead

the phones are dead

no electricity

no water

 

the sky burns orange

spits fire with rage

 

I decide to sit on my porch

and wait

 

until I am incinerated

by an enemy I can’t name

 

until I breathe in molten air

and my skin melts from my bones

 

trails of fire

I follow to my grave

 

Christopher Hivner is a lifelong resident of Pennsylvania in the United States. He has recently been published in The Horror Zine and Illumen. His book of horror/dark fantasy poems, Dark Oceans of Divinity, is available from Cyberwit.net or Amazon.

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Image: A late afternoon photograph from an Aubrey’s restaurant patio. The image filtered to render a fire in the sky effect, overlaid with a man in silhouette with glow added. Photography and Photo-art credit: John C. Mannone

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John C. Mannone is a scientist, poet, lyrical essayist, fiction writer, and poetry editor who creates derivative visual art and photo art for speculative poems in Abyss & Apex, Silver Blade (on hiatus), and ADR Poetry (defunct). His photography/art appears on the anthology cover of the 2026 Tennessee Voices, inside Chattanooga Writers’ Guild anthologies, and on select collections. He currently serves on the artists staff of Yellow Mama Literary Magazine. His literary work appears widely in Artemis, Critical Humanities, The New England Journal of Medicine, and others. He’s the Poet Laureate for the City of Oak Ridge, TN (2026-2028).

 

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