The Sky Burns

The night sky splits open

not from wonder, but from war,

each crack of gunpowder pride

a siren call for every wounded thing

that never asked for this.

Puppies tremble.

Bunnies scatter.

Newborns cry out in fear and confusion.

The air stinks of smoke and selfishness,

and somewhere, a young human

with memories too heavy for their years

flinches in the dark.

They call it celebration.

I call it desecration.

Of silence. Of peace.

Of the fragile thread

that barely holds this world together.

We blaze the sky

for seconds of hollow applause,

while the earth beneath

screams quiet

choked in ash

the animals, the anxious, the earthbound,

left to cower beneath

the glittering ignorance of ego.

Is this our legacy?

Noise over nuance?

Spectacle over soul?

A species drunk on its own reflection

as the planet crumbles beneath

the weight of our fireworks and foolishness.

I want to burn it down

but the truth is,

it’s already burning.

And some of us

the tired, the awake, the ones with bleeding hearts,

we carry buckets of water

even when no one notices.

Even when the sky

and our hearts

keep shattering.