The Teen Zine 

1
Time has changed us.
Once, we could trust the rain.
Now, we can’t even let it inside.
We can’t find any solace on the earth that birthed us,
    no longer,
    no more.
It’s painful, it is—
    watching our children grow up afraid
    of what we taught them to be afraid of.
We used to know these things, we did,
    before everything changed.
Before we changed.
Because we wanted wings,
    we fed the beast,
    we fed it because it was still hungry,
    not thinking it would consume us, too.
But we still wanted more.
    We fed our hearts,
        our souls,
            our children to the machine.

What did it cost us, this terrible reality?
Oh, everything.
Everything.

​

2
Our water is poison,
    our air is toxic.
It’s turned on us because
    we turned on it.
We tried too hard, we did.
We flew too close to the sun,
    so we fell,
    so this is our punishment forever.
The maw of the beast growls,
    its constant buzzing filling our ears—
    we can’t turn it off, we can’t beat it,
    not anymore.

Though we tried to, it was much too late.

What would we do, if we could go back?
We can’t, not even now. Even now
    while the machine screeches,
    while the birds scatter and the trees shrink back in fear.

​

3
We thought ourselves eternal, once.
    When we fed it,
    we thought we could tame it.
    Now, it has taken everything from us.
But we gave it all up willingly,
    with our own two hands,
    while begging on our knees
        for mercy.
Still, the beast is never satiated,
    never not starving.
        How can we stop this? We plead.
                Please, spare us!

When the machine speaks to us, it only says two words.
    Memento mori.
    Remember you must die.
And so we are not eternal, and so we never were.
    The beast lives inside each of us,
        whispering its secret without end.
    Yet, we never did hear it—
    never too clearly enough to stop.
So now, we all must die—
we all must be eaten—
because I thought we could cheat it—

4
As if anyone could even trust the earth, our bodies, the water, our tears—
As if anyone did before they ran out.
    I trusted the beast because it told me what I wanted to      hear.
    Don’t say you wouldn’t have done the same.