By Emily Branigan, TIWP Student

Do you remember the sounds of kids playing outside,
dirt on their knees and mother’s pleas to come home before dark?

Do you remember plastic-less seas, flooding with everlasting life,
the turning and churning of currents pumping through every organisms veins
as if it were beating to an infinite drum?

Do you remember the smell of gentle grass in the countryside
before our bustling cars and factories cast a shadow over them?

Do you remember the taste of your hamburgers on the fourth of July
when we didn’t think about the calves being stripped from their mothers
only to live day in and day out in a metal cage hearing the sounds of their mothers
calling out for their babies until they lose their voice?

Do you remember your touch,
how many people have you shook hands with or brushed shoulders with
who contributed to the problem and knew it
but just didn’t care?

Well, I remember.
I remember what once was
that is now lost
to the entertainment of the little black square in our pockets.

I remember it all.
We hear “I wish I could go back.”
“I wish we could’ve warned ourselves.”

But we’ve crossed that point.
We’ve crossed it long ago
and the only thing left to do is to move forward,
to try to pick up the pieces and start to change.