in our lifetimes

we find ourselves stacked on top of each other

as we’ve not yet built enough satellites to live on

(admittedly, Alien scares us too much anyhow)

and this earth is already full

 

in our death-times

it will be the same way (but we have more space to ourselves then, in plush boxes, even, and though it’s a waste of earth, our matter is so precious)

 

do you know in some places they confiscate children?

they give them away (“some other country’s problem”)

sometimes

it is illegal to have “too many” children

and you pay fines for your overgrowth

 

and likewise

we sterilize persons

we label the degenerate, the unfit

we make eugenic decisions

 

we force upon some: abortions, infanticide

we do terrible things to babies

thinking babies will do terrible things to us

(and “we were here first!”)

 

its wrong to kill our children and wrong to kill our parents

its wrong in both respects

but here is the planet, and it is going to kill us if we don’t do something

(because we are killing it,

and it needs to defend itself)

 

our sun is giving us cancer,

while our taxes give us “family planners”

 

meanwhile we resent our daughters

(“who will over-farm our soil now?”)

the orphanages teem with discarded children

they long and thirst, while elsewhere

schools have children jamming inside

 

someone has to pay for these things, you know

the citizens maybe

but we hope not

 

because were busy

 

over-farming;

overfishing;

overkilling;

overgrowing;

overrating;

overcrowding;

 

 

overflowing

 

 

 

overwhelming.

 

 

and we have our own costs;

as more and more,

children are becoming “made-to-order”

you can build-a-baby

and spend your fortune to make it as perfect as possible

and control all you can,

even though somewhere

there’s such a huge surplus

that they practically give kids away out drive-thru windows

 

meanwhile,

we ask where all this dust comes from

and this fog

(it shields everything!)

but we still find others, arm-lengths away

and so the mouths to feed keep multiplying

“there’s no more room for babies” some say, as they squeeze one out (“sorry, I’ve already filled the vacancy!”)

but we find chance anyway

on the twenty-sixth floor,

six rooms deep,

in a building so overcome (by billions of minute water droplets)

that it disappears,

 

and from far away,

someone else thinks, empty space!

and they start to fill it.