Drowning In Heartbreak

We told our government again and again about the dangers of our rising seas.

What is the point? They never listen anyway!

It was only last week that Sunlay, my hometown was hit by yet another dangerous storm. The waves were over 20feet high as they crashed furiously over our land like violent giants in a battle.

People lost homes, possessions, and families, and over 3000 children died in the storm.

We were left with nothing! Yes, nothing.

I can feel the rage building up inside me like a fire that rages on through the night.

Only, no ice can cool what is burning inside. I'm a boiling inferno, a big ball of gas that I just want to explode on our ignorant government.

Nothing left; nothing but soggy sinking land, underwater ruins, rubble, wrecked homes, and lost lives.

As I struggled to write this on my tablet while wading through a heavy river where there used to be a footpath, I just walked past a couple who were crying and holding onto each other for dear life.

They lost their 5-year-old daughter who was peacefully sleeping in her bed when the violent wind crashed a giant thundering wave over their home, crushing it, and ending her life.

Can the government hear me?

The horrible rising sea caused a wave that ended a 5-year-old girl's life. A child's right to live is stolen because you don't care!

A farmer stands waist-high in the water, observing the damage done to his farmhouse and land in horror.

That farmhouse was his only home.

My heart breaks to hear him weep, and tears finally overwhelm me. He cannot process the devastation that has erupted around him, damaging his wealth,

dead cattle, dead crops, drowned farmland, and no home. The end of his wealth.

The pain, grief, and heartbreak that surrounds me is enough to make the strongest person in the world fall apart and crumble to their knees.

People know that they must leave; even though they don't want to leave this town they once built so much life in, and loved.

I don't want to either, but what choice do any of us have?

We have tried asking the government to take action in order to prevent the situation from getting worse, but no! They are only happy when there is money in their own pockets.

No point in saving money when we could all die in a few years, is there?

In order to process that this will be the final time any of us will see this town we once called our happy home, I take another look around me.

My mind cannot process this damage. My eyes sting from tears, though they flood just like the sea once more.

Families, couples, single people, the elderly, and children all look lost. They look too scared to open their eyes and absorb the horrible nightmare we are all living right now.

We are angry.

We just lost our town because this government will not acknowledge that our sea levels are still rising, and they refuse to do anything about it.

They continue to ignore our climate is changing, and they pretend that nothing is happening.

Do they not realize, they and their families will die too, if this continues? They are not immune either!

I realize I have to save myself, but I don't want to.

I know I can't control nature and that I have to let it take its course, but that is a difficult thing to do when you have lived here for almost 19 years.

I breathe and walk away with shattered glass cutting deep into my heart, and thundering pools in my eyes. I know that I won't be the only one walking through these once-happy streets, which are now just drowning angrily in a flood-ridden torrent.

I cry with pain, as I know that I can't do any more to save my town, and I know my town won't be the last.