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H
climate change tastes like hot dog water
Jack Mullarkey
Havertown, PA
2022, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word

this suburb is
soon to be a subterrain
because this methane
is making me want to
prepare to drink my pee once it goes through a machine

it’s waterworld, baby
i’ll see you there
because this subterrain
is not gonna turn into a tub drain
for all the sewage that
spews out of the mouths of
man,
sacks of skin filled with rats

those sewer rats are gonna adjust, well,
the septic belle of the ball
they’ll flap their gums like bird wings
until they’re covered in oil
crude and cruel
just in time for their
hypothermic doctor’s appointment

does anyone else taste salt?

why is italy’s boot a little biscuit heel
and not an 8-inch pleaser anymore?
i think i’m missing pieces to this jigsaw puzzle
that’s 7 pieces
that i learned when i was 6
and now we have like, 5
years for this show to get renewed
because i have 3 more lines
to tell you that
this is one big
piece of garbage

no, i taste…

Reflection

Not everyone needs to be able to handle the harsh, stark truth about what climate change is doing to our planet, but it is everyone's responsibility to be aware and conscious of how their choices and lifestyle affect it. My poem is an attempt to entertain and captivate the reader while still making them aware of the fact that climate change will ruin our lives if we let it rage on. It will cause irreversible damage if gone unaddressed. I will admit that I have spent a lot of my life unaware of the cold, hard facts concerning environmental issues and climate change, but choosing to educate myself has allowed me to be more conscious of how I live my life and the decisions I make so that I can preserve my future on this planet. I hope that by reading my poem and looking beyond its dry, satirical take on what our future holds with climate change, people will want to join me in making better life choices so that we can stop contributing to climate change.

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climate change tastes like hot dog water

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