Scales
Waconia, MN
2018, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
When I was little I went to my school’s carnival
Full of ring tosses
Milk bottles
Beanbags
I had this hope of turning my paper tickets into something beautiful
Which if you think about it is how we define this thing called life
Of course, I was too young to be profound
I just wanted some candy and something
That would eventually reside between my bed and the wall
I instead left with a goldfish
I cradled his fragile bag all the way home
Whispering through clear plastic
Kissing the water from the other side
Later blinking against cool glass on the countertop
He died in two days
I saw my own heartbreak reflected in the tank walls
His upward belly covering my glass pupils
It was the first time I had seen death
After that it kept on visiting
Cold fingers on my heart as I fished some limp body from the water
Smiling sad goodbyes into a whirling toilet bowl
I found over time, though
That the hardest skeletons to bear
Were the ones I couldn’t see or feel
The ones locked in a closet a thousand hallways away
Or a thousand hallways down
Beneath the blue
The darkest graves are those of water
Where the sunlight never reaches
The floating fish
The jellyfish made of plastic bags
The coral, bleached white from aquatic fever
The land of the dead is beneath our boats
But we never look
The surface glints too sweetly
The waves kiss too softly
Too beautiful to believe that the middle has gone wrong
Rotting apples and caramel onions
But the second you take a bite
A look
An inch
Mile
The pigment falls and it’s that tank again
Your first friend limply riding the waves as you pound the walls
Wondering what you could have done
Wondering why you didn’t clean the filter
The power plants and factories belching smoke
Wondering why you lost the fish food
And poured in tons of black oil instead
Wondering why you didn’t notice
That every escalating centigrade was poison
That Gills don’t work when they’re boiling
That scales don’t glue back on
That they can only be balanced
The past mistakes with the awakening
We have no arctic or pacific on our countertops
But death never changes his name
And the fault is ours
Reflection
Reflection
I grew up in a house where “global warming” was a forbidden phrase. For years I believed that humans truly had no negative impact, no role in the fact that temperatures were rising. Eventually however, I began to learn; I heard about carbon emissions and the greenhouse effect. I started to understand that we truly were part of the problem - that it was our responsibility to fix it. Since then, I have tried to show people what I have learned, to inspire change. I remembered how fascinated I was when I saw marine life for the first time and how torn I was when I was old enough to realize that it was dying. I channeled my frustration and desire for change into my keyboard and managed to reveal what I have been trying to say for years. A single poem will not change the fate of our oceans, but it can remind people that we have to start protecting them. If my words open even one set of eyes, change one mind, a difference will be made, and that is enough to keep all of us moving forward.