To Mankind, From Earth

Eyes fluttering open, I woke up beside him with his face close to mine. I sighed. I’d given in to the argument yet again, crawling back and falling asleep in his awaiting arms. I silently got out of bed and drew back the curtains to look outside the window. Dusk. The sky’s dull indigo, diluted by the harsh lights of the street lamps. The horizon, polluted by the constant stream of smoke escaping the factories, the chimneys. I glanced behind me to see his vacant eyes staring at me. The hollow look tugged at my chest, as I remembered what it had been like before.

He had been caring, and we’d lived peacefully together. The sun had framed his entire being, creating a warm shelter for me to take refuge, and his eyes had emitted utter devotion and brilliance each time he looked at me. We’d fall asleep enveloped in the cool breeze of the hills, the grass gently stroking our backs. The sun would shine through the canopy of lush leaves on the trees, creating jagged shapes on his bare chest. The sky as my diary, the clarity of the days paralleled my bliss, and each ink blot of light glowing in the dark expressed our feelings of ardour. The perfect temperature and the perfect weather left me with perfect memories of the past.

Memories. The only things that are left. What he once nurtured is destroyed, and now I wither. His love has turned to indifference and sinful indulgence, feeding his machines of momentary desire and lust. The smoke trailing from his cigarette creates a thick division between us and suffocates, chokes. The rose petals have fallen, leaving only the thorns. The ground is now muddied and eroded, with the grass being trampled on by the harsh stamps of his foot, the trees being hacked away by the beat of his axe. He has disfigured the grounds where we lay, forgetting, not caring, and dismantling every recollection of our past. He drives away from me, the powerful engine revving, spewing dirt in my face and leaving me petal-less, crushed, and beaten. Yet he always comes back, begging for more time to improve, to change, and wraps himself in my embrace. But the colours of my vision have changed from golden to brown. The warm radiance of the sun now beats down relentlessly. My skin is peeling, scorched, and my whole being is on fire.

I look into his vacant eyes, realising that everything that once was, is now just a memory. But I am entwined in his decaying grip, unable to disentangle.

My heart is in agony, the pain trickles through my body, melting my core. Dragging me from extreme heat to stormy cold, you have wrecked me. Mankind, what have you done to me?