Choking in the Air
Lahore, Pakistan
2022, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
A man just fell on the ground coughing
I look around am I in a theater watching some serious skit
Nothing can be seen, my vision is blurred
I ask myself, am I turning blind
What have we done?
It feels like the earth is laughing
Did karma just happen
Did what we did to the earth came back to us
Is it taking a revenge
The birds have disappeared
The crops as if erased from the planet
Taking their last breath
It feels like some nasty beast sucked
Sucked all the clean air out of the earth
Who is that beast?
I look around
In the mirror I see no one
But us
What have we done?
Sucked all the air for our greedy selves
Now, I see no one but us
Humans falling here and there
In search of clean air
Reflection
My main inspiration was the place where I come from: Recently my city was ranked as one the most polluted cities in the world with one of the worst air quality index. During the process of writing, I felt a plethora of things ranging from anger and guilt at our actions, to a belief of improving ourselves in the future. To me, the most funny thing about climate change is that whatever intentional or unintentional damage you do to the environment comes back to you and causes damage to you even more. I would like to tell people that a lot of times you do not realize that your small actions can have a very big impact, and rather than asking others for change, start by changing yourselves. I have learned how precious our environment is and how our small minor actions can have long-lasting effects on the entire ecosystem, as we are all interconnected.