The trees are gone.

I remember so little of my youth.

I remember trees. People had lawns, driveways, and those weird patches of grass just after the sidewalk.

I remember my great grandmother had a birch tree in her back yard, with white stones lining nearby gazebo. She'd get pissed at me when I'd get bored and throw them around the yard.

I remember grand birthday parties, held under the great oak tree of my grandmothers back yard. It felt like hundreds of people showed up. Drunk hunters and fishermen, lying through their teeth about the 12 point buck, or 15 inch bass no one caught.

I remember walking for blocks to my friends house, to swing sticks in their back yard, pretending we were Jedi or knights of legend. I'd pass by a dozen of recognized and smiling faces.

Now, I've moved to the city. No one really knows anyone. The world doesn't shine as it used to. The sound of loons and morning doves are replaced by roaring engine's and deranged shouting.

The world feels made of concrete and steel. A cyberpunk hell, made of plastic and ads, our lives linked to battery life, and reduced to statistics and algorithms.

Everyone wants to be left alone in their overpriced shitbox apartment when the price of housing has reached the millions. Cost of living is rising daily, sacrificed in the name of corporate profit, and funding wars no one wants. Callousness infecting the world as people decry "it is what it is, you just want the easy life".

I want my children to know what a childhood is.

The trees are gone.