We were told there would be a future, wasn’t we?
We were told the world would get better, wasn’t it?
They fed us promises like they were candy, and we believed them because we were children and what else could we do?
Now I’m looking at the rubble and wondering who was stupid enough to think this could hold.
The news keeps playing the same song on repeat: another war, another crisis, another politician who doesn’t give a shit.
It’s background noise now, like birds or traffic, something you don’t really notice until you do and then you can’t stop hearing it.
People are dying and I’m scrolling through my feed like it’s entertainment, like I’m watching a film that’s slightly too dark for me but I watch it anyway.
The world is burning and we’re all just standing here, warm enough still to not feel the heat.
Trump came back and everyone acted like they didn’t see it coming, like democracy is some kind of video game you can just hit reset on,
like all those people who got hurt before just didn’t matter anymore, like we could pretend it was all a bad dream.
But it wasn’t, was it? It was real. And now he’s real again, and everyone is scared again, and nobody is doing anything about it.
We’ve all just accepted that this is what we get—a game of thrones played by idiots who think money makes them smart.
Ukraine is still bleeding and everyone has stopped caring, or maybe they never cared that much to begin with.
I see those photos and I think about what it means to wake up and your city is just gone, your home is rubble, your family is dead.
I think about soldiers who are children, barely older than me, fighting because some old men in Moscow decided they wanted more land.
And the rest of Europe just watches, like we’re spectators at someone else’s funeral, like it doesn’t matter that our continent is tearing itself apart.
Syria is being tortured by a terrorist who everyone just accepts is in charge now, like we couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it,
like genocide is just one of those things that happens, something we talk about for a week and then move on.
I don’t even know how many people have died there, I don’t know if anyone is keeping count anymore.
The world moves on, the news cycle changes, and millions of people suffer in the background of our regular lives.
Israel and Palestine, Palestine and Israel, round and round in circles like we’re watching a fight that nobody is ever going to win.
Both of them are suffering, both of them are crying out that they’re the victims, both of them are right and both of them are wrong all at the same time.
Civilians are dying on both sides and the politicians are playing chess with human lives, moving people around like they’re not real.
Two peoples who have every right to exist are fighting over the same land and nobody can figure out how to make room for both.
It’s tragic and it’s stupid and it’s so fucking unfair that children like me have to grow up knowing this is just normal.
Everywhere I look, people are fighting about everything.
They’re fighting about who gets to exist, who gets to have rights, who gets to belong.
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and everyone is blaming each other instead of looking at the system that made it this way.
We’ve got immigrants and refugees who are just trying to survive and people are treating them like they’re invaders, like they’re the problem with the world.
And the racism, fuck, the racism.
It’s not even quiet anymore, it’s just shouting in the streets and on the internet and in government buildings like it was never taboo to begin with.
People who used to hide it behind code words and dog whistles are just saying it now, saying it out loud, and half the world is cheering them on.
I’m watching people turn on each other based on skin color, religion, accent, and it’s so exhausting because we’ve been here before and we know where it goes.
The people who claim they’re oppressed are the ones oppressing everyone else, and it’s like we’ve all forgotten what actual discrimination feels like.
We’ve created this weird world where being called out for racism is somehow worse than being racist, where people’s feelings matter more than people’s lives.
It’s backwards and broken and I don’t know how we’re supposed to fix it when we can’t even agree on what the problem is.
And the politicians, Jesus, the politicians.
They’re all the same, aren’t they? They promise you the world and then they get into office and they remember that it’s way easier to just make themselves rich.
They care about their legacy, their bank accounts, their power, their elections. They don’t care about you, they don’t care about me, they don’t care about the children growing up in a dying world.
Every election is a choice between bad and worse, and we’re all supposed to pretend that voting matters when the system itself is rigged.
Foreign influence is everywhere now, spreading like a disease through every country, every government, every institution.
It’s like watching someone else’s puppet pull the strings and half the audience doesn’t even notice that what they’re watching isn’t real.
China’s influence here, Russia’s interference there, America poking its nose into everyone else’s business. It’s a mess of competing interests and regular people just get caught in the middle.
We’re not governing ourselves anymore, we’re just the board game pieces in some global strategy that nobody really understands.
I think about what civilisation even means anymore.
We built all these structures, all these systems, all these rules that were supposed to keep us safe and make us happy,
but what we actually got was massive inequality, endless war, environmental collapse, and a bunch of people at the top laughing all the way to their bank accounts.
We created a world where people have to work three jobs just to afford rent, where a simple illness can destroy your entire life, where we know exactly how to fix everything and we just choose not to.
The thing that kills me is that we know how to fix it, we know what needs to happen, but we can’t be bothered to actually do it.
We’ve got the technology, we’ve got the resources, we’ve got the knowledge. What we don’t have is the will, and maybe that’s the scariest part.
Because a broken system is at least a system you might be able to fix, but a broken system where everyone has just given up? That’s the real collapse right there.
And I’m supposed to be optimistic about this, supposed to believe that things will get better, that my generation will save the world or something,
but I’m watching the world burn and I’m too young to feel like I have any power to stop it and too old to not know what’s happening.
I’m stuck in this weird place where I know everything is falling apart but I’m supposed to keep doing my homework like it matters,
like anything matters when the people in charge have decided that profit is more important than the planet, than people, than the future.
We talk about activism like it’s cool now, like protesting is part of your personality or your aesthetic,
but nobody is actually changing anything, are they? We’re still consuming, still destroying, still pretending that our individual choices matter when the system as a whole is designed to fail.
It’s exhausting being aware of all this while everyone around you is just living their lives like nothing is wrong.
Sometimes I wonder what I’m even supposed to do with this anger, this knowledge, this understanding that the world is broken.
I could scream about it but my voice doesn’t work, I could write about it but does anyone actually read poetry anymore or is it just something we do for school?
I could try to change things but one person against a machine that’s been running for decades doesn’t exactly feel like a fair fight.
So I write, because that’s what I do, because I have to put this somewhere or it’ll eat me alive.
And maybe nobody reads it, maybe it doesn’t change anything, but at least I’ve said it, at least I’ve named the thing that’s wrong.
At least I’ve told the truth about what I see when I look at the world, and that has to count for something.
The collapse isn’t coming, it’s already here, we’re just still pretending we don’t notice.
We’re walking around like the ground beneath our feet is solid when really it’s been cracking for years.
And we’re all so tired, so fucking tired, from pretending that this is normal, from acting like this is just how things are.
But it’s not normal and it doesn’t have to be this way and that’s the part that makes me the angriest.
Because we could choose something different, we could decide that people matter more than profit, that the planet matters more than politics, that the future matters more than next quarter’s earnings.
We could do it right now, today, this minute, and we just don’t, because it’s easier to let it fall apart.
So here we are at the end of something and I don’t know what comes next.
I don’t know if there’s a way back from this or if we’ve already gone too far.
I just know that I’m angry and I’m sad and I’m writing this down because it’s the only power I’ve got.
And maybe that’s enough. Maybe speaking the truth about what is broken is the only resistance that matters anymore.
Maybe naming the collapse is the first step to doing something about it, or at least to stop pretending it isn’t happening.
I don’t know, I’m just a child with no voice and a lot of words and a world that’s falling apart around me.
But I’m here. I’m paying attention. I’m writing it all down.
And that’s going to have to be enough.
