A Byproduct of Creation

It is pasted together. Grubby with the petals children have pulled from the head of roses and sunflowers. Its bones are fuzzy with cherry red and envy green pipe cleaners that have been cut and twisted—disregarded in wire mess wastebaskets. Its eyes are the many bits of lint pulled from deep pockets and wads of spiderlike string that has been rolled between thumbs and fingers. It blinks and a mouth carved from tiny scissors reveals needlepoint thumbtacks that glisten in its cloth scrap maw.

It is tall and skeletal thin with a belly that caves in. It hungers but it is weak. It collects the used and useless things cast from uncaring hands and with them builds its rising form. It waits in delighted agony. Waits for the rolled pieces of cartoon stickers, for snapped hair ties, bent needles, scattered confetti, and plastic pieces. And the more waste that is left astray, the stronger the creature becomes. Until its head—dripping with bleach, flaming oil, and stark blue antifreeze—touches the greasy sky and its long radioactive arms stretch around the grey earth.

Its mouth, now filled with rusted excavators, fallen planes, collapsed steel beams, and all matter of sharp manmade things, opens wide. And as a hot breath of burning tires, of asphalt, and of gasoline sweeps over the earth, the creature will take one big bite and swallow down the world down.

You know the creature's name. But collective negligence and the unrelenting bite of cooperation's greed force us to ignore the creature. We let it grow and grow. And when it devours our frail, sick bodies, we will only have our own system to blame alongside our own inability to do one simple thing: change.