Mourning Flood

(Backstory: This piece was written when news first broke that Exxon had been feeding us misinformation for decades regarding climate change in order to pad their own pockets and protect their own interests. I was filled with rage...and I still am.)

I am in mourning

For all that should have been

And all that can now never be.

They knew.

Like wicked demons prowling on innocents;

They knew the risk they took,

The future they would wrought,

And they did it anyway

With hushed meetings,

Disingenuous campaigns of fiction,

And stacks of money –

They gambled away our future.

My future.

Your future.

Our children’s future.

Like so many nickels in a machine

That only pays out to them

And only in the short-term.

For even they will feel these effects,

The tumbling down of this house of cards,

This fragile existence based on lies

And finite materials.

They were too busy

Squandering away precious time

And resources

And lives

To realize what they would lose,

What we all will lose,

When reckoning comes.

We are already feeling the birth of that age.

The darkness is nipping at our heels

As water becomes more scarce,

Food becomes a luxury for too many,

And war breaks out over necessities.

We now have only a short time

To save us from ourselves

Thanks to those who deemed us not worthy of saving.