Poetry Contest Entry

Surviving

~By Kittykat

Some say it happened when we set foot on the red planet
We had ventured too far, too fast, too recklessly,
Soon we would notice them, know we weren't alone anymore,
They didn't want us out there, in the universe with them,
Decided we should stay here on earth, where we belong....
The skies were black before they started to fall,
Tar black, empty, endless, the stars hidden by cloud,
Then, while I took a breath, it all lit up suddenly,
Like the sun had woken late and missed dawn,
Bright, blazing, burning through my closed eyes.
I didn't know at that time it was the end of all we knew, The end of the vaguely comforting predictability of life,
Sex, religion, politics all became irrelevant, pointless,
School, work, friends, days out, nights in, living,
It all came to a sudden fiery halt that evening.
The sky started to hit the ground, fast, furious,
Everything made by man, made by Mother Nature,
Crushed without discrimination, without prejudice,
In all our history had we never been so equal,
Standing together as one in our insignificance.
And so it continued for a blinding frozen eternity
Pounding, smashing, grinding, destroying, killing,
All around we screamed in pain, in fear, we fell,
No prayers were whispered for the dead,
The living were no longer sure what alive meant.
That shattering endless minute became an hour,
That hour, stretched, slipped by, became a day
When we ran, hid, curled into a foetal position and wept,
Shocked and scattered, lost and confused,
We began to learn what it means to survive.
Our scorched home kept spinning slowly on its axis,
The sun eventually shone its way through the smoke clouds,
And we learned what it meant to survive,
We clawed our way back up; we rebuilt, bigger, better,
And rediscovered what it meant be to be human.
We remembered, we remembered the night the sky fell,
Our children were taught, ingrained with the knowledge,
Because we were waiting patiently, planning carefully,
From generation to generation we passed the truth,
Knowing that one-day we'd reach the stars again.
The one-day, someday, they will see their sky tumble down,
They will feel their skin burn; their bones turn to dust,
All around they will scream in pain, in fear and fall,
It will all come to a sudden, fiery halt one evening,
Then they will learn what it means to survive.

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