farewell letter to Earth

Dear Earth,

I’m writing this letter because I feel that time is running out. It’s late and I’m tired. I bet you are tired too. Tired of carrying the weight of two many heads, too many voices, tired of all the fighting loaded with insolent grudges, tired of giving everything I have and getting nothing in return. What comes back is destruction. At times slow and deep, then all of a sudden, with instantaneous violent blows. Our world is in decline, our civilisation on the verge of annihilation, because we weren’t capable of taking care of each other, we weren’t capable of speaking the same language, not the verbal one, but the one of the heart. The one where we understand each other only if we learn to listen.

Dear Earth, we do not deserve you. We step on you, not by walking all over you, but by making a mockery of the trust you have given us.

Hatred ignites in the well and contaminates the water we drink, the water that was meant to give us life. But we have chosen death. For us. For others. Because in selfishness we become selfless. And we welcome aboard our vessel our fellow travellers; a sinking vessel as they sink with us. And while the water embarks and with its weight carries us down towards the abyss, we cling to each other, with the fear of being alone, with the terror of not seeing the sun anymore, rising majestically on the horizon while the last centimeter of breath disappears under the surface of a flat, calm, silent sea. Just as you will return, dear Earth, the day we abandon you. No, we will have saved you. Never was an abandonment more sweet and loving. Behind all the hatred and despair, behind every strike of violence a shattered heart seeks shelter from the impending storm. But in the shadow of the most merciless tempest, the one that destroys, kills, takes away what never belonged to any of us, a timid poppy slowly shows off all its beauty, reflecting a garish red coat that unavoidably reminds us of our blood. The blood that has drowned the land and poisoned the well. So that we can all drink what has made us this way.

And when we will all perish so much faster than we can imagine, when the curtain falls on our terrifying show, you will be ready. Ready to turn on the dim lights of the theatre, to clean out all the garbage carelessly abandoned by the audience, to rearrange the requisites the actors have used, to tidy up the blinding spotlights that will cease to have a purpose. Just as the silence in the empty auditorium will give way to the sound of the wind. The rustling of a stream and the gushing of the sea. The pouring rain will shatter and cover the earth with a deafening roar. And it will be reminiscent of the incessant noise of a metropolis, where shouting, cackling, engines and noises, metallic banging, and distorted echoes prevent us from talking to each other. But no one will be left to scream in the rain. Ah, what I would give to be there, in the deafening silence of free nature. Where shouting at the rain becomes a gesture of natural ease.

But we have all drunk that poisoned water, and although in our hearts a poppy seed wears out its timid roots, there won’t be enough light for it to grow. And instead of the beauty of nature, our spirit will continue to suffer the abuse of a society that inebriates and kills us at the same time. It transports us on waves of complete euphoria, taking away all conception of reality. Nurturing our pain so much that it leaves us in complete oblivion. Only to plunge us back into an abyss of terror shortly after. Where darkness looms and anxious breathlessness becomes our compass, as we desperately search for a way back to the top of the curve, where a dim, warm light cuddled us in a temporary slumber. That slumber resembles a dream.

Dear Earth, there are days when all I yearn for is that dream. And in that dream, I will ask for your forgiveness, for everything I’ve done. For everything, I haven’t done. And I will thank you. For though I do not deserve you, you have welcomed me with open arms, and on my grave, you will be growing red poppies.