The First To Drown

The Earth isn't dying—no, she's screaming, a sound you've stopped hearing. she cried when girls walked miles for rusted, tainted water, when ancient forests become forgotten, ash–filled pyres, no worn map ever dared to mark. In my homeland, we don't fear the tempest's furious might.  We fear the silence – The hollow echo of empty, cracked wells,  the desolate stretch of barren, parched fields,  The early,unforgiving digging of our graves.  They label us “developing,” yet we are always the very first to drown,  The very first to wither from hunger's bite,  The very first to forfeit a future  we never, ever sought to destroy.  They peddle green, plastic-wrapped illusions.  “Eco.” “Clean.” As if mere words could somehow  unscorch the blazes from the sky.  But behold, we stand– girls with bare hands, replanting the struggling forests,  boys coding, fighting against the swift collapse,  children marching, with fierce fire in their lungs.  I continue to write. Because even now,  The Earth, in her enduring wisdom, still believes in us.