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Gravedigger

We are killing our own home slowly,

Like a child swallowing poison lonely,

An entire bottle down at once,

Then wondering why the heartbeat stops.

 

Digging graves beneath our feet,

Calling ruin progress sweet,

Building towers tall with pride

While the world decays inside.

 

We burn the air that fills our lungs,

Black smoke blooms from greedy tongues,

Choking skies a deeper gray,

Stealing tomorrow day by day.

 

We poison rain, we salt the seas,

**** the roots beneath the trees,

Then stand confused when storms arrive

Like Earth herself is still alive.

 

Every bill we choose to pass,

Every deadline stretched like glass,

Another line in our suicide note,

Another hand around Earth’s throat.

 

Humanity stands on the ledge,

Toes curled tightly at the edge,

Looking down with smiling eyes,

Mistaking warning signs for lies.

 

We drain the rivers till they crack,

Never thinking to give back,

Now oceans bleed along the shore

Like wrists cut open on the floor.

 

The planet foams at poisoned lips,

Oil slicks stain her fingertips,

A bathtub filling red and black,

While we keep climbing on her back.

 

We strip the forests to the bone,

Leave empty fields of dirt and stone,

Cutting down the lungs that breathe

The very air our children need.

 

The bees fall silent one by one,

No more dancing in the sun,

And every flower left to die

Is one more quiet suicide.

 

We cage the animals in chains,

Industrialized their fear and pain,

Factory screams behind bright lights,

Mass graves hidden out of sight.

 

The glaciers melt like fever tears,

Warnings screamed for years and years,

But comfort keeps us deaf and blind,

A species cruel to its own kind.

 

We tighten every fatal rope,

Confusing profit now with hope,

Trading forests, seas, and snow

For things too meaningless to hold.

 

And still we act surprised somehow

As the earth collapses now,

Like someone gasping, turning blue,

While we insist she’ll make it through.

 

But home is not just soil and stone,

The earth is flesh beneath our own,

And every wound we carve in her

Returns to us, transferred and blurred.

 

Because when the final tree is felled,

And every living ocean swells,

When ash replaces summer breeze

And silence hangs where once were bees,

 

Humanity will finally see

The thing we killed was not just Earth

It was our air,

Our food,

Our future,

Our worth.

We were not separate from the dying.

We were the body bleeding out,

The lungs collapsing from the smoke,

The hand that wrote the suicide note,

The finger that pulled the trigger

The ultimately naive gravedigger

Request permission to use this poem
Written by
Thirteen14
14
Published
May 12
Lines·Words
76·437
Notes

The wrong ice is melting, we are killing our home

Permission

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