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Earth Undone
Mountains made of waves
tore the flesh from Mother Earth —
flayed and flooding.
The mud grieves beneath her,
clogged with stagnant saline.
She used to breathe — rivers ran wild and free,
forests stood tall and proud.
For she was once lush —
verdant skin stretched over a trembling core,
veins of sapphire seas pulsing with breath.
But we carved into her with teeth of steel,
peeled back her emerald skin,
pierced through her bones.
We didn’t ask.
We took.
Her lungs lit like lanterns.
Birds dropped from the blackened sky.
The ocean soured, bloated with grief.
Coral bleached like the bones of the forgotten —
silent, skeletal, sunken.
And still, we kept chlorine at her flesh.
Now she festers —
her winds thin, her skin splitting.
Cities crust her like scabs.
She does not scream.
She simply waits.
A casualty of your cruelty,
she lies open, emptied —
not for mercy,
not for rage —
but for the stillness that comes
when there’s nothing left to save.
And still,
you look away,
call the silence healing —
but it’s too late
to unknown what you’ve done.
Copyright ©
Billie Jama
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