There once was beauty beyond belief
In far north Queensland’s barrier reef
Beneath the surface of the sea
There lay a world of fantasy

Amid the shallows of the deep
Countless crustaceans crawled and creeped
A place so different from the land
Until it was touched by humans hand

Now polluted by plastic sedimentary and decay
Has our only solution been washed away
Once a wondrous landmark to behold
Gone in a heart beat, the oceans tale, told

Although there a politicians that still deny
A warming ozone will bid the coral colours goodbye
Littered white graveyards accomplished the sin
If only we had thrown our ******* in the bin

A tremendous story of ecological distress
Hopefully we can learn from this disastrous mess
/gt

Two worlds meet as crystal waters dance to shore, tickling powdered sand with fingers of foam. The sound evokes calming sensations, perhaps revelations, before falling silent as the wave retreats. A sailing boat strokes the surface, whistling with the wind as it carves patterns, unaware of what lies beneath. Even the sun looks on in awe, as its rays gently caress the quilt of blue, congratulating its infinity. The land above, so blissfully unaware, sits and inhales salt stained air.

Beneath the clouded sky of blue, lies the ocean’s treasure chest, a beauty born of rock and sand. It offers a glimpse into its world, for the inquisitive, stuck on land. Fish of every sort dash amongst confused hues of greens and blues, gulping salt water as if it were scarce. Angelfish dart around like horizontal fireworks, while seahorses surf the foamy riptide. The sun’s rays explore the thick meadows of seagrass, that sway in slow motion to the breeze of the current. Coral castles cemented in the sand curiously poke their turrets out of the water, causing waves to trip and fall and spill their froth. This is the ocean’s natural aquarium, yet mankind still invade the shallows with camera lenses and alert senses, attempting to prove they can figure it out.  

The sea becomes weary, tired of showing off. With its final yawn, it exhales out one last chunk of rock before it falls into a deep, cold slumber. The fresh palette of turquoise has faded into shades of murky blue as the ocean’s belly is revealed. The sun, now desperately trying to reach its rays towards darkened depths, is now just a golden haze, unable to offer any warmth. On one side stands a wall of coral, tarnished with colour, hypnotising life so it does not stray. The other offers an unconscious abyss, frightening to the wary, tempting to the brave.

The deep proves uncharitable to navigation, yet it’s muffled moans still encourage exploration. Faint whispers echo and fade, carried by indecisive currents. Now too deep for the day’s light to intrude, creatures below must brighten their own paths; fish with fangs carry glowing white pearls from their heads, while faceless ***** drag strings of electricity from their pulsing pink bodies. A lone whale glides by in her watery flight, her haunting lullaby becoming lost in the great Somewhere, accompanying the secrets that stay sealed beneath the blue.

The Great Barrier Reef
A beauty born out of rock and sand
Seldom touched by human hand
An image of beauty
Slowly demolished
By the unpolished

The Great Barrier Reef
An unexplained bleaching
Its beauty compelling,
Its color expelling.
It lays in pain,
Forever longing a voice.

The Great Barrier Reef
It burns with heat
A half now surrendered
To the changes from above
A feeling unknown
Whirlpools surging
Destroying all we’ve known.

The Great Barrier Reef
She’d given up
Hope.
The destruction will never stop,
Her perseverance now lost.
But maybe someday,
The world will once again live in peace.
The Great Barrier Reef

"So. Why a robin?"
I picture us fighting, my neck hits the back of the leather arm chair. It hurts and you apologise. You are still pretending to get mad whenever I say I love you like you are not willing to hear it. You know I am going far away and whether its university or life we can't work without one of us making the other miserable. And I am still folding our hands to origami swans at 3am wishing for a second more with you. It goes futher than taking the scenic route home, dragging my feet and prolonging the front door, pretending we don't know how this ends.  We have the same conversations over and over, you apologising and joking as you think about what you'll turn into//me wondering if I'll even bother to make it that far. One day you might not remember my name, think my face isn't mine because didn't I used to blonde? We are not even perfect on paper. The government wouldn't grant us our bursary because they knew we are too self destructive. My poems for you were pretty when flipped to the ceiling but we think too much, wound ourselves up, and the folds in the pages won't come loose anymore. The words don't sit right. Somewhere on a fence in Carlton sits two robins. And life gets so hard when you realise you can't actually help another adult with their problems, you can only make them a cup of tea. Not coffee. Their brain spins in it's swivel office chair, controls broken. A dictatorship sinking fast. Their heart races - the more coffee you drink the more likely you are to experience anxiety//undiagnosed depression is hard to get rid of, it knows you want to acknowledge it and it waits for you to stumble upon it, it feigns surprises behind a pinewood door, but life doesn't get much better after you notice it. You still want to die and you still think every day about the one in three anorexia sufferers that don't make it. How really you don't know what "making it" is. I found a boy that I imagine smells like fire. He has these crazed pinpoint eyes that are not like yours and I don't know what to think anymore. He is an artistic genius and I want to run from my bad dreams into you and I don't know what to think anymore. I don't think anything is real anymore. I think we hit an iceberg. I think my fingers are caught in the ice, splayed hands grasping still like curved talon ends and I don't think I can get lose but it is cold. Think. Your warm hands on my ribcage holding me on an axis. Pedestal. You told me I don't love you last night and it felt like hot wax cooling in my throat. I can still taste it now. My hands are cold. I'm writing poetry about you again but I don't know if it's for you this time. Yes, there's a difference. I felt something gut wrenching today when I found that the great barrier reef had died. Is dying. It lived for 25 million years and the human race killed it. Like a toxic relationship composed of a bad survival climate and corporate waste, like us killing us. Big red buttons looming closer. I would compare us to the death of the great barrier reef- I don't think we were as beautiful, and we were killed by ourselves not climate change. So I am writing us an obituary before we self implode. I am writing the nights I have not spend crying on the kitchen floor an obituary before they are even over.  I don't think I can breathe underwater and the pressures are getting to your head. The colours are fading and the plants aren't breathing anymore. The backs of my eyelids are freezing over. You are the only one who knows about the two robins on a fence somewhere safe. You are the one I tell my nightmares to, the ones where I wake up and I can't breathe without you. The ones that I don't have anymore because now my fingers are inches away from the end of the rabbit hole. I can feel the breeze at my fingertips. We deserved more than a bunch of flowers cellotaped to a lamppost. More than a game of hangman. More than this is how I say happy anniversary. I wish we hadn't killed the great barrier reef. I wish that there had been better ways to say happy anniversary.