We Have To Care If We Want To Live

If there was one thing about this world that I could change,
I would make the world care.
There are not enough caring people in this world to save it
and because of those who don't,
those who do are limited by funds and numbers.
We are being limited by digits,
pieces of paper with faces on them and pieces of metal
that will never amount to the value
of the entire planet that we have the privilege to call home.
Scientists scramble to find an alternative,
a place that human beings, destructive as we are, can live on.
They're saying we have less than thirty years
before our mistakes become the reason for our demise
and most don't even believe it.
They don't care enough because they don't want the truth.
They want the comforting lies
that those they work for give them just to feel safe again.
They told us to build houses on stilts
because we may lose them to our oceans in a few years.
They told us to watch our footprints
because the bigger they are, the worse our lives will be.
They told us to drive electric cars
because gasoline, useful as it is, clouds our atmosphere.
They told us to wear face masks
because the air we breathed was filled with deadly toxins.
They told us to evaluate the evidence
and to see what was happening for ourselves, to believe,
because none of us wants to die.
We're all living on the same plantations, the same crust,
yet we refuse to save is as it crumbles.
Our deserts are flooding and our forests are cracking
because we refuse to believe it.
We live in the luxury of safety until the hurricane hits
and we'll have nowhere to live,
nowhere to run to in search of shelter and loving comfort.
We won't have a planet anymore.
We don't even know if we'll be able to find another in time
to save the world and its children.
Those who don't care only think of themselves as time,
the ticking bomb, devours our hope.
We were given this beautiful planet so we could thrive
and all we ever did was kill her.

Rovva

QC

YWP Alumni

More by Rovva

  • A Nine-Year Journey

    For nine years, I've been a part of YWP and for nine years, I've felt seen by this community. Even as I've grown up, I've watched new young writers come and share their thoughts, emotions, and stories.
  • Beaming writer

    In sixth grade, our class had a show-and-tell every week,
    and every week, a small handful of students were selected to participate in the next one.
    As I was selected, anxiety kicked in.
    I wasn't really proud of anything.
  • Love And Embalming

    They carried you away in a black hearse.
    Our black eyes,
    beaten and bruised by love,
    caressed your black coffin.
    They opened your casket and there you were,
    your eyes closed,
    relaxed and so cold,
    and yet you seemed so alive.