No Winner
Dulles, VA
2019, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
2 Billion Tons.
Gone.
“Unusual Melting,” you say
And watch on.
You watch on as my life drains
Swaths of carbon sharpening
Needles of radiation
That puncture my pale skin.
But your indifference
Fuels my anger.
My beauty, you stole
So I take yours.
Licking my blue salty lips,
I swallow crisp cakes of land
And jagged coastline toothpicks.
But my rage does not deter you
Does it even disturb you?
The coal still burns, the gas still pours
The carbon still rises
And my face
Still Falls.
But I will not go quietly
The war is not yet won
With puckered lips, I swirl
Angry storms, made to
Destroy.
We fight these battles, hard and heavy
But my loss is not your gain
It is a fight to the death
For both of us.
Reflection
Reflection
I was inspired to write this poem after reading an article about severe melting of the Greenland ice caps. At first, the statistics didn’t really resonate with me; after all, I thought, the ice melts every summer. But when I read the line saying two billion tons have melted this early in the melting season, I suddenly realized the grave implications. Climate change is affecting our ice caps and oceans in drastic ways, primarily due to human actions. In this poem, I pitted a “war” between humanity and the ice caps that ultimately has no winner. I hope this poem inspires people to fight for the oceans, not against them.