they never told us we would never be happy
they never told us we were born to die
they never told us anything but lies
Thought
Why was it us who have risen up on this earth? A species built on consumption and destruction. All those years ago, we stood up, while the earth stayed down. We keep the grass from growing, the weeds from spreading. We regurgitate the leftovers of our comfortable living, our supposed progression as a species, into the sky. Maybe the blackness of space behind the blue skies we claim to hold so dearly, is a reflection of our impact and our set course as a species. Why didn’t the trees grow colossal and block us from the sky, why didn’t the green of all the earth tangle and entwine to keep this tar and concrete from scorning the earth. I see a beautiful place. Not the mass that we have labelled with our language and our beliefs, that we have scorched with our inventions and our violence, that we sow with our grief and our death. The fields upon fields of towering cages we have built resemble our currency, our safe operating procedure. Fire and ice lie beneath waiting for a crack in the system.
I can’t help but think why this planet didn’t overcome us, didn’t shun us out. Or rather, why it hasn’t yet. Everything we see and touch and feel, serves the cycle. The insects, plants, animals, winds, rains, the crashing thunder, the heat of the core that holds this place together and the vacuum that has sealed all of this organic life together, all serve the cycle. Repeat. When the earth cracks at the seams and the consumers become the consumed, will our blood and our marrow feed the ground beneath us, the sky above us, and the heart and soul of this earth which we have spent like bargaining chips. Will another’s eyes take a peek up into the sky and see our blood written there? Will those eyes fail to see the earth breath as we have failed, to acknowledge it as our life. We perceived life as a gift given to each and every one of us. Life is borrowed, returned, and replaced. Life is all around us. How could we be so naïve as to think we possess such a force individually and undoubtedly. Life cannot be claimed or conquered as we have done to the ground and the sky. I think life is the breath of the earth. I hope we feed this planet well. When we return the breath that we borrowed I hope the fallen sky scrapers serve as ladders for the vines and the trees to grow closer to the breath in the sky. I hope the craters are deep enough for the dirt and the flowers to be closer to their heart. When the earth is granted silence, granted solitude from us, when the stacks stop spewing smoke into the sky and our bodies are finished feeding, I hope its nothing like we wanted it to be. I hope it does it right next time, and it lets itself grow wild.
