Spill
Dallas, TX
2016, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Black.
Like ink spilled from a bottle. Staining your hands like blood.
The wound is deep.
It spurts. Gushes. Surges from the gash. Bathing everything in darkness.
No amount of pressure can stop this deadly spout.
You only watch. Feel it spreading. Farther and farther.
Seeping into everything. Bathed in death.
Crimson.
Breaking News banners. Catastrophe. Chaos.
Scramble to react.
Like a broken egg.
A dismal reality of a dark fairytale.
Too late to put back together again.
It spreads like a wildfire.
Unforgiving.
A monster you’ve created but can’t control.
No time to react. Only sink.
Deeper and deeper.
Suffocating. Can’t breathe. Can’t believe.
How did this happen?
Pinstripe Blue.
A briefcase clicks in finality.
Its’ done. Behind them. Time to move on.
Continue.
Make a new monster, a better one.
Clean and sterile.
Smells like money.
Sign here. Initial there. Leave it to the community to clean up your mess.
The ink bleeds onto the paper.
Silent screams of millions.
The scorching heat of the flames.
Trying to erase. To save.
Choked by the blackness. Consumed.
The wound is deep.
It spurts. Gushes. Ruining too much.
Look closely. At clean hands.
The blood is caked under the nails.
Smells like copper. Like pennies. Like money.
The scar is worse.
The taste of death lingers on the tongue and melts into the air.
Reflection
Reflection
As I was preparing to wash the dishes, something caught my eye. The small duckling perched on the label of the DAWN soap bottle made me pause. I immediately smiled, completely consumed with a warm and fuzzy feeling. It was adorable. But this small duckling wasn’t just to tug at my heart strings, it was to bring awareness of a very harsh reality for wildlife, especially marine animals. In a world that is growing every day, the world for many of these animals is slowly shrinking. All too often, these creatures are caught in the crossfire, simply collateral damage in the “big picture.” Millions of oblivious turtles who confuse plastic bags for jellyfish and the countless seagulls ensnared in our trash. They suffer for our carelessness, for our apathy, for our mistakes. Watching the cleanup effort of the BP Oil Spill in 2010 unfold on news stations everywhere, I remember seeing the heart-wrenching images of seagulls and turtles covered in the black oil. Using colors to describe this horrible spill, I hoped to evoke a feeling of passion and strike a chord within every reader. This oil spill is not a black and white issue, with the bad guys and the victims. It is complex, heartbreaking and eye-opening event. I wanted to portray society’s mindless perusal of capitalistic goals at the cost of precious life. Awareness should not be a reaction, it should be a lifestyle, an advocacy in which we strive to uphold.