Member-only story

Nourished lips and a parched soul

A poem

2 min readOct 9, 2021

I didn’t open my hand, as I was holding tight to the remnants of the pearls,

left after the earth had torn itself apart to nourish my body, my soul, my core.

And I kept my eyes tight shut too, as I didn’t want to see the devastation,

I had wrought on everything, to make my food, my bed, my shelter.

I didn’t open my lips even to whisper, let alone shout my disagreement, my discomfort,

when it was all being consumed by our collective greed and hunger for more and more.

I kept my heart insulated in the acid of greed, selfishness, in a jar of me, keeping me first

above everything, everything that I had devoured to feed my ego, my insatiable thirst.

And suddenly like sand, time, and life slipped out of my fist and
I was left, empty handed,

alone on a barren land, on the side of a poisoned river,
looking up at the leafless trees, under the canopy of rainless clouds.

It was eerily silent all around, and with no one to hear, finally,

I whispered
"I’m sorry!"

Thanks for reading my poem. If you enjoyed it, please check my poem on a similar theme, about an Earthen man losing the Earth.