the men behind the curtains are pulling strings again,
their fingers slick with something thick, something oil-slick black,
something that drips between the cracks in the floorboards
and pools in the mouths of the hungry.
they speak in circles, in ribbons of smoke,
in promises spun from gold-dipped breath.
but when you hold them to the light,
the gold is flaking, peeling back,
revealing the bone-white rot beneath.
they build their cities on the backs of the drowning,
pour concrete over the open mouths,
pat the ground smooth,
call it progress.
they carve their names into marble and call it history,
but the statues still weep at night
when no one is looking.
in the streets, the people move like ghosts,
hollowed out, emptied, made small enough
to fit between the gaps in the system.
they kneel before screens that flicker like gods,
praying in silence to the ones who will never answer.
outside, the neon signs are bleeding,
electric veins pulsing against the sky,
a city built from glass and hunger,
always hungry, never full.
somewhere, a mother cradles a child
who will never grow up to own the air he breathes.
somewhere, a man counts coins that will never buy him tomorrow.
somewhere, a girl stitches up the holes in her pockets
only to find new ones tearing open in the seams.
the ocean is rising,
lapping at the edges of empire,
a quiet, patient animal waiting to take it all back.
the earth cracks open like an old wound,
swallows forests, swallows homes,
spits back the bones.
the rivers run thick with something dark,
something too toxic to name.
they tell us not to drink.
they tell us to be grateful.
they tell us the sky is still blue,
but when we look up,
all we see is smoke.
the men in suits raise their glasses,
laugh over the sound of collapsing ceilings,
shake hands with the same red fingers
that signed the death certificates.
they talk about the future in rooms too high
to hear the wailing below,
too far removed to taste the ash on their tongues.
and still, we wake.
and still, we walk.
we gather what is left,
wear our hunger like armor,
carry our sorrow like torches.
if the sky will not clear,
then let us be the fire
that burns it all down.