On Extinction (a slam poem)
When I was in the 6th grade,
My science teacher told the class
That the sun was dying.
When we reacted in a panic,
Our frantic voices asking,
“When?”
She smiled.
“5 million years,” she said.
In 5 million years, the light of our lives will be extinguished
The nuclear power that spins air into our lungs
Paints our skin
Colors our eyes
Will be darkened, indefinitely.
But her words quelled my fears, and the extinction of the sun became
An impossibly trivial thought tossed like dust to the back of my mind.
In 5 million years I would be dead ten thousand times over.
Remnants of my life will have slipped through cracks in the sidewalk.
Any impact, any bloodline I leave will be washed into nothing
Eroded like a riverbank
with the fall of 5 million years of rain.
In 9th grade we learned of a much more rapidly ensuing extinction
When we learned about climate change.
A death by self-inflicted wound to the pulsing throat of the rainforest, the desert, the oceans.
A green jewel chipped away with every track we make
With cars, and chainsaws, and hairspray
And we learned that some people don’t believe it’s true.
And sitting in that classroom, staring at green trees and mountains standing like mighty giants
That extinction didn’t seem real either.
And what could I do, anyway?
And now,
As I look forward,
I am aware of another extinction.
Instantaneous and total.
More pressing than the end of the sun,
But just as nuclear.
We don’t talk about it in school.
And I can’t toss it away like dust.
Because even when I try,
It enters my mind and keeps me up at night
With a clench in my stomach
And my eyes wide and staring
Into darkness.
There is no set deadline,
Only deadly missiles poised over oceans
Total destruction held in a single heartbeat.
In that moment, will the sun lose its reason to shine?
I’d like to think that we are intertwined with the fate of the planet,
Meant to be here.
But I can’t help but think that after that moment of fiery finality,
The trees will grow deeper roots.
The flowers will be cultivated with sweeter water,
And light will stream onto uninhibited growth and life,
Untouched by human hands.
I can only hope
That I will be dead ten thousand times over
When the sun explodes.