LJIdol / LPF: Week 7: Steadfast

[codenamewanderlust]

I want to write a utopia where for the sake of humanity 

everyone put down their weapons 

and saw through the myth 

that there wasn't enough to go around

 

Because the Jesus I want to believe in didn't MAKE more loaves and fishes 

it was the crowd 

who only took what they needed to nourish them

 

You see greed has always been the problem

And capitalism is a hoax

 

And gee, 2018 has really become the year that I speak my truth 

because even when I mean to give vague and polite answers 

I find myself just giving away the actuality 

 

This

 

is my reality 

I’ve smoked to much weed to memorize these words 

but I don’t think I’m telling you anything you haven’t already heard

Too smart for your own good, I'm told

 

Will we ever give up our willful ignorance?

 

BE the catalyst

For a change?

 

Because even, ‘How are you?’

Has become a rhetorical question

 

And you aren’t ready for MY rhetoric 

I have an $80,000 degree in English literature

 

Deconstructionism is my default setting 

 

Steadfast in my conviction

 

That green is a color that will fade 

Until there is only red and then grey

Slate and dust

Scorched earth

 

But we are afraid of what we can’t comprehend

 

Science, hypothesis, causality and proof

 

Whatever happened to reduce, reuse, recycle?

Whatever happened to the movement to ban aerosol?

Why don’t more people compost?

 

I stand in an imagined sea of polystyrene and mountains of single use plastic bottles

A not so distant future 

 

Will I even live long enough to see the destruction? I'm asked 

and I am looking up the sidewalk at discarded burger wrappers and big gulp cups 

 

I already have

 

And now here we are filling the oceans with our plastic

Cutting down the last trunkula trees

 

The earth is preparing to hit the reset button

 

The human race has only existed in a second of the Earth’s life

and we deserve to pay the price for our ingratitude 

 

Help us Captain Planet you are our only hope…

 

A dollar bill is just a piece of paper with logos on it

A debit card is just another piece of plastic

 

Still, I would go full on hunger games in an arena to win a full payment of my defaulted student loans 

Just for a chance to be a victor of the American dream

-------
exactly 400 words

Comments

[alycewilson]

And it doesn't help to have a climate change denier on the White House, either.

[rayaso]

You have put your English degree to good use in writing this poem. I hope you have no regrets on majoring in English. The world needs more English majors and fewer Business Majors, but economics favor the more practical majors.

[the_eternal_overthinker]

Wow! Excellent points made. I can only agree with you more and start by doing my bit for the environment which may not be enough I know. Superb take! Worth sharing across.

[halfshellvenus]

I liked the conclusion to this very much-- because that does drive us, even when we wish we were immune.

The single-use water bottles really hit home-- one of our most wasteful products, especially where most people can actually drink the tap water and really should. :(

[bleodswean]

Us and our English degrees! I wouldn't trade that education for the world though - and I minored in Philosophy LOL!

Great work here, your cadence and back-and-forth imagery is very successful!

[bsgsix]

I have one of those $80k English degrees and some grad school to go with it, but here? You've clearly put it to very good use. This is excellent, and possesses such an amazing rhythm.

[dmousey]

I feel you. 😊✌🐭🐁

[wolfden]

This is really well done.

[murielle]

It's the weirdest thing, but here I am at sixty-three, I have been reducing, recycling, and reusing for almost three decades, can't recall the last time I bought anything in an aerosol can and I thought everyone lived this way. I do on occasion bye one-use plastic water bottles, but if you check my fridge you'll see I use them until they are no longer usable and then I recycle. Again, I thought everyone lived this way.

Your poem saddens me, but I will never stop doing what I can for the environment. Thirty year old habits are hard to break. ;-)

[onecheapdate]

Oof, I identified with so many of the sentiments here. This country seriously needs an overhaul and you touch on many of the issues. It would be wonderful to live in the type of utopia you describe, but I know my generation will be long gone before America ever gets it's act together.

[bellatrixe]

Beautifully expressive!

[moretta]

All I want to do is hug you, then possibly chant this at the top of my lungs.
Hard hitting.

[flipflop_diva]

I just finished paying off my grad school loans last month. Almost twenty years later. Sigh.

I really liked this. You made some really great points, and the last sentence is my favorite.