TAKEN ADVANTAGE

I was taken advantage of.

I gave you everything you could ever want.

 

In the beginning, I gave you trees. I gave you beautiful, big, flowing trees that danced in the sunlight and rejoiced in the warmth.

I gave you fresh air. Free and light- air that you could feel flow into your nose and throughout your whole body.

I gave you water. Expanses of vast oceans as blue as the sky. Oceans deeper than a human soul. I gave you water you could drink. Water you could swim and play in.

I gave you music. If you tried to listen, you’d be able to hear the chirps of the birds, the trees swaying in the wind, the ocean hitting the sand.

I gave you grass. It was soft, and green, and plentiful. It was clean and fresh. You could roll around in it wherever you wandered.

I gave you stars. Bright, shining, white stars that you could see from millions and trillions of miles away.

 

That was all I had to offer you. Was it not enough?

 

The trees are now insignificant green papers that are driven by greed. In the same place where they once were, there are now lifeless buildings that touch the sky and reflect the sun instead of embracing it.

The air is gray and murky. It’s hard to pull it into your lungs.

The water that was so clean and clear is now polluted with the trash that you created.

The music is almost nonexistent. The birds stopped chirping because their homes are gone. The ocean stopped hitting the sand, and is instead washing over the trash and dead animals that got caught up in your selfishness.

The grass is now covered in sad, grey concrete that lets no life flow from it.

The stars are covered up by your artificial light. It's hard to see their beauty.

 

Why did you let me get to this point if this land is so free?

Why did people forget they fought for me if this land is so great?

Why are you so concerned about the color of skin when you should be concerned with the color of the water?

Why are there so many people without homes, and yet you took from me and have more than you need?

I was taken advantage of.

This poem is about: 
My country
Poetry Terms Demonstrated: 

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