where were you?
they will ask, eyes wide and unknowing,
“why didn’t you stop it all?”
how do we tell them about the weight of silence?
my love, you’re so young.
the days blurred together
and the fires felt far away until they
were at our own doors.
we sat in rooms lit by screens,
watching the world unravel in slow motion.
we scrolled past the warning,
turned down the volume of the screams,
we became ghosts in our own ghost towns,
haunted by our own indifference.
it wasn’t that we didn’t care.
that could never be the case.
we cared too much,
so much it rotted inside of us,
turned us hollow,
left us paralyzed neck down.
we all thought someone else would rise.
someone else would save the world from the fires,
the hatred, the rising sea,
the kids stuck in the foster care system, the tortured pets.
we thought someone would save us,
we thought there was time,
we thought we were being dramatic and
we thought-
but thinking was all we ever did.
and now the children,
our children,
read about our collapse,
their small voices trembling with disbelief.
“mom, how could you watch this happen?
how could you sit back?”
we want to tell them the truth,
“baby, i was young.
i was scared.
i was tired.”
i was whatever stopped me.
hope felt like a cruel joke, and
every step forward felt like sinking deeper into quicksand,”
but they wouldn’t understand.
how could they?
they weren’t here.
this is dangerous beyond their years.
they didn’t breathe the air thick with despair,
or feel the way the hazy sky pressed on our chests,
until we couldn’t stand anymore.
we left them a world in ruins,
and ancient, broken civilization,
and we called it inevitable (but it wasn’t.)
we left our children, our babies,
the future,
questions,
questions we didn’t have the courage to answer.
maybe they’ll hate us,
maybe they’ll forgive us,
or maybe they’ll forget,
bury our failures under new ones.
after all,
this is what we do.
we watch,
we wait,
we fail.
