Nellie Yvon

Not a College Fund Among Us

At 16, my church friends and I knew the world 
was imploding. Heard about it every service, how 
the signs of the End were happening before our eyes.
So, we played chicken in traffic and took idiot 
dares, peacocking—sideways glances at the boy 
with the chipped tooth, the girl with black pixie cut. 
All our crushes washed gold under streetlights. 
Sermons warned that we might not grow up, 
might never fall in love. How our bodies thrummed 
to smother the ache of doomsday. 
Once, we fire-escaped 20 floors up, stood on the ledge 
of an apartment building with our eyes squeezed shut.
We prayed for God to blow us back to safety, to miracle 
our afternoon bright with belief. 
Another time, after bible study, we walked beyond 
the parking lot, set pennies on train tracks, 
and lay belly down with a finger on the trestle. 
I counted boxcars as they dopplered by, 
one cheek to gravel, hair lashing my face.

Nelle Yvon lives in Georgia and writes about the doomsday cult of her youth. She is the managing editor of Beyond Bars, a journal for incarcerated writers and artists. Her work recently appeared in Portland Review, Tulsa Review, and elsewhere.