Devilfish
I am not a protest hero.
I hardly venture out my door.
I do not walk the midnight streets,
where voices rise like waves,
where fists carve through the silence,
where banners stain the air with hope.
It isn’t that this world is good,
or fine the way it is.
I have given my time away
to causes that faded,
to movements that vanished,
to promises left to rust.
But the streets still pulse.
With feet that won’t stop marching,
with voices that refuse to break,
with hands that build where others destroy.
The damage is done.
Two hundred years of poison,
two hundred years of plunder,
and yet—
they press forward,
they fight against the tide.
This world was never ours alone.
Homosapiens crowned themselves kings,
but the earth was meant for more.
Its rivers belonged to the fish,
its forests to the beasts,
its sky to the wings that once stretched freely.
I was a humanist once.
Believed in the weight of every soul,
held the conviction that all had value.
Now, I am unsure.
But I see it in the marchers,
the ones who gather in the streets,
who stand against the wreckage,
who still believe the fight is worth the scars.
I stroked the fur of my pet pizzly bear,
Gaia’s new abomination.
More people vote
on a name for the creature
than for the hands that shape their fate.
And yet the streets call.
Not for names,
but for change,
for hands that lift,
for voices that stir the embers.
We should have left this planet
to the dolphins.
Instead, they sing their final song,
so long and thanks for all the fish,
as they slip into the void.
Especially the pink ones—
so out of this world.
But we remain.
Bound to this broken rock,
to the wreckage we wove.
And still, the streets pulse.
With the weight of protest,
with the rhythm of rebellion,
with the voices that refuse to go silent.
I am not a cynic.
A cynic believes the world is wrong
but holds faith in its redemption.
I hold no such faith.
I do not believe
that the right words will reach the right ears,
that power will ever bend to reason.
But I listen.
To the chants that thunder through the avenues,
to the speeches carved into city walls,
to the fists raised like beacons.
I don’t care if you believe it or not.
The world will end either way.
None of us will be left to say,
Ha, told you so.
But until then,
they will walk.
They will shout.
They will carve a path
through the rot.
It doesn’t matter.
I am going to leave this planet
with a bang.
Hedonism is worth more than regret
when every other right
has been stripped away.
When the world has been hollowed,
its pleasures stolen,
its wonders tainted.
But the streets still hold something pure.
The pleasure of resistance,
the defiance of standing tall,
the refusal to be forgotten.
It’s all corrupt.
It’s all stained.
Nothing is safe.
Nothing but him,
his love,
the breath between us.
And I just want to die beside him,
suffocating on the smoke,
as the last tree turns to flame.
I know—
this sounds fatalist.
It’s meant to.
How else should I be
when the world is burning
before my eyes?
I tried to save it.
Sorted the cans,
folded the paper,
cast my votes.
What does it matter
when they carve the earth open
all the same?
What does it matter
when rockets cut the sky,
fuel spent for spectacle,
for greed disguised as glory,
as they dig up the nickel
to press into coins?
I am nothing to them.
Irrelevant, invisible,
just a speck in the storm.
But a speck can move.
Can march.
Can scream.
Can push back,
if only for a moment.
So, freak it.
I will go out in silk scarves,
billowing in the wind,
in the car with the top down,
that Ford Fiesta,
green and purple stripes.
But first,
I will walk the streets.
I will join the march.
I will lend my voice to the roar.
I will find whatever remnants of magic
still linger in the dust.
Once, this was a field of dreams,
woven from the hopes of angels
who believed in us.
Now, abandoned,
left to the wreckage,
to the cold hands of those who stopped believing.
And yet the streets remain.
They carry our defiance.
They hold our rebellion.
They pulse with the fight
for something more.
Plug in the devices,
live your life as a Devilfish.
So many tentacles,
still unable to hold
what truly matters.
But the streets—
they hold us all.
For now.
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