No Longer the Same
Little Rock, Arkansas
2016, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Me.
I’m living and healthy.
I swim through plants and reefs, satisfied.
My habitat lays so peaceful,
full of life and happiness.
Me.
My lifestyle is sustainable
My environment is clear, blue, perfect.
Waves crash against rocks and stones.
I peek at the shore,
children, adults, and toddlers chuckle together in the rays of the sun.
My daily tasks are performed with great haste.
Time passes as
a living soul
feeds me.
However, I am not hungry.
I am fed not nutrients, but poison.
I am fed harmful toxins.
I am fed not food to give me energy,
but food to minimize my energy.
I become sick, and I start to die.
Trash — plastic, debris, sewage
It has accumulated on the ocean floor and shore.
It has been ingested by several mouths, including mine.
I, now, travel through my environment with a hurt body,
both physically and mentally.
Now, my habitat isn’t peaceful, nor is it perfect, nor is it prepossessing.
It is hostile, desolate, bare.
All because of those so-called mighty earthlings.
Thousands of my peers are sick.
Thousands of my peers are suffering.
Thousands of my peers are dying.
Thousands of my peers are dead.
My lifestyle is no longer sustainable.
Nowadays, I am not me.
I’m delicate and ill.
I swim through open cans, and run into broken plastic bottles, unsatisfied,
injuring myself with every flutter of my fins.
I feel different, no longer the same.
I am not me.
Reflection
Millions of people around the world throw trash, such as plastic or debris, into the ocean, and they don’t know how much harm that one little piece can do to marine animals. If it becomes ingested, then they can become extremely ill, almost leading to death. It starts to destroy necessary functions needed to survive and thrive. Not only does it hurt their bodies on the inside, but it additionally hurts their bodies on the outside. Sharp objects could leave scars and open wounds, possibly injuring them for a lifetime. Through this poem, I wanted to express the fact that marine creatures change due to the wastes that are released, and thus this is written in the perspective of a marine animal. The populations of them are slowly decreasing, and humans could definitely change that! This could simply be done by picking up trash seen in bodies of water, or ensuring that all of your trash is where it should be. Polluting the Earth a little may seem small, but it sure makes a grand difference.