I
I held you
before you had a name.
You took your first breath
in my arms
Drank from the rivers
I carved with glaciers.
Your anxious giggles
shared the air
with my buzzing pollinators.
You found warmth in the skin
of animals you now breed
only to bleed.
I opened my hands.
Mountains.
Oceans.
Endless forests.
You mistook my gift for permission.
You learned fire
and called it progress.
You sliced open my belly
for gold, for coal,
for something to burn.
You paved over my skin
and called it civilization.
But I remember your barefoot prayers
And your whispers of gratitude
under my rain-soaked skies.
I remember when you listened.
II
You hollow me out
to build hollow lives.
You poison our children
and call it commerce.
You curse the storms I send,
never asking why I weep.
Tell me-
What god taught you to kill your mother and worship the smoke?
You do not see me dying.
You see profit in every wound.
You stand over my body
with blueprints and drills,
And dare to call it legacy.
But I feel it.
I feel everything.
I am dying,
And it is you
holding the knife.
Not time.
Not fate.
You.
You, who learned how to split atoms
but forgot how to kneel.
You, who tear open mountains
like pages from a book
you never bothered to read.
You, who will not stop
until the air is fire
and the oceans forget how to sing.
I carried you too long.
And now I go,
Choking on the smoke
of your ambition.
A planet collapsing
beneath the weight
of its most fragile species.
III
You warmed my soft skin
With your hunger for more heat.
Now, I burn for you.