Dear ETs,

I’m sorry, I cannot find a way

To bring myself to fully answer your question

Regarding humanity’s ending passage of days;

Like you, I can’t seem to understand

Why we all pretend to be blind to the world in our hands.

 

This is a world, by writers, populated

Millions of geniuses, unpublished, unrated

And so distracted by luxury and amenity that

We subconsciously bury the people’s uniformity.

 

In any human life you will always find

--------An uncle with ramblings one of a kind

--------A coworker’s jokes with an audience resigned

--------A friend so moved, his reviews ramble until everything is defined

It’s a wonder why we remain so tumultuous

When we are all from your perspective so prealigned.

 

Forgive me ETs, but I am no leader

I am no more than a simple high school senior

I cannot give you wise or new insight

For in my youth to this I have no right.

 

But I do wonder why in school we are taught

Writing, the most arcane, is not

Speaking, the most paramount, is not

Sharing, the most salient, is not

Communicating, to not.

 

We’re not like you, we can’t bionically

Absorb all new information

We all go instead through

The same systems of education

(don’t ask why when we are a people of variation-

It’s not in my hands, but the hands of the nation).

 

Writing in institution is not a freedom

To meander, it’s hesitation

It’s a train on a track, straight forming

The click clack of the wheels on steel,

Of the fingers on type keys, unseeing

Past the screen light of tonight to

Smother any glow we might find in tomorrow

Unconcerned with what could and what might

To worry only over an old man’s idea

Of what is the wrong or the right.

 

But it’s inconsequential,

that definition of right or wrong

Because writing is supposed to be

Coming home

To be

The death of mortality

To be

Adding your voice to the human song.

 

Our language is an essence, like water or air

We all can tap in or tap out

Without need of academic flair

Or the weight of a judge’s stare.

 

But this system has blinded us to who we are,

Who we’ve been.

Don’t abduct my peers, then

You will be disappointed, when

Of their learnings, they only can

Recite the shortcomings, unlike their elden,

Clearly none anywhere close to the path to be wise men.

 

To them our voice is a pain, not a means to channel.

Writing, archaic

Speaking, paralyzing

Sharing, best silent

Communication, for naught.

 

And it doesn’t stop there, for

Our worries have bled into every

Fiber of our every intrapersonal exchange

To make all talk a path to the obvious and nothing more.

 

In all of us is an author whom publishing denied have we

Buried under parties or comedy or polite company or

the godly or the easy or forced inability.

 

I tell you of the end of humanity, to help you see

That we set a pencil to paper and leave the eraser

A perfect pink

Deleting the words as they are born in our heads

Any idea we have we think is just not worth the lead

You see as a species we always end but never begin

Wanting to something better create

But acting only to any innovation terminate;

Since needed communication is second to shallow pleasantry

How can we ever hope for harmony?

 

We can’t even bring ourselves

To scratch a word into paper, let

Alone cut the toxicity out of our Earth

And so my intergalactic friends

I tell you the tale of humanity’s end.

 

Listen close, you will hear it-

“-not well trained-”

“-Can’t find the words to explain-”

“-Don’t want to share the pain.”

If the ground was honest speaking, or deeper thinking

We’d be up in a plane-

And I know that-

Not all humans are beings of scrawled ink

Some are beeping numbers, others

Flashing shutters, a few

Put here only to be there when a child’s eyes flutter.

 

But no matter the passion we all could think

--------And even if our mental faculties are

--------Rusting, if our bodies no

--------Longer trusting,

We all could write, we all could speak-

We all have a voice, but we do not sing.

 

So please, when we die, ETs,

The funeral bell, ring.

And know that our demise

Was no irresponsible fling

But a flaw we put on ourselves

When no longer we cared to achieve.

We were a heartful species,

though too quiet in the face of everything.

 

Sincerely,

Frightened little me.