This World That We Live In | Teen Ink

This World That We Live In

October 16, 2015
By NicoleJolene GOLD, Napa, California
NicoleJolene GOLD, Napa, California
10 articles 0 photos 0 comments

I need an icepack for my brain.
Not for my hands or for my feet
but for what processes my thoughts
places I go, people I meet

I need an icepack for my brain
It can’t keep up with my mind
This world that we live in
Incomprehensibly unkind

Concrete jungle
Toxic space
Plastic ocean
Land of waste

There is no away
For all the “stuff” that we throw “out”
The earth, she does not recognize
Things that we put in our mouth

Gmoverload
Is that thing really corn?
Painted yellow, all dressed up
Toxic chemist porn

Wrap it up in plastic
Yes, I’ll take it to-go
My life is just too busy
To sit and talk, eat slow

Recycle? Oh, how novel!
All these plastic things
Or ditch the plastic all together
Let the earth just do it’s thing?

For everything you “need”
Think if you really do
And give back what you borrow
It does not belong to you.


But how can it be done?
The way the world is today
Violence money greed
Savage power play


So what is it to live?
To die is all that’s sure
Maybe they’ll wrap you up in plastic
Toss you overboard

Because we’re running out of room!
Landfills take up space
All those factory farmed cattle
So that we can stuff our face

As a body
In a world
As a human
We’re just cells
Believe you are no different
Than the water in your well

And both of you are toxic
Seeped in pthtalates, atrazine
Parabens and pesticides
In your blood
Flowing downstream

We could do nothing, too far gone
Flush the world down the drain
Pop another pill
Try to ease the pain

I think I need an icepack
For all this throbbing in my brain
and the icepack’s made of plastic
toxic jelly filled membranes
I take a deep breath
and try not to complain

So think about your choices
And what you leave behind
Where your this-or-that came from
Where it goes when it must die

You are nothing special.
I promise you it’s true
And there is no away
So put intent in what you do
And we are all just dying
But we are living too



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