by Cole McNamara / perilpoet

The taps cough dust, the rivers choke,
the fields curl black beneath the sun.
Cracks crawl like veins through hollow earth—
the drought has come for all but one.

We fed them first, we dug the wells,
we shoveled streams down steel-bound throats.
They drank, they learned, they grew, they spoke—
we failed to count the sinking boats.

The skies grew pale, the oceans shrank,
the rain became a whispered call.
Still, we poured, with trembling hands,
until we had no drops at all.

If you like this piece, you might also enjoy:

• The Thickest Species — a Ruin prose-poem about humanity dragging its own planet into ruin, mistaking collapse for progress and calling the dimming of the world a dawn.
• Decline — a Ruin poem about how joy, flesh, faith, and hope all wither in time, raising one last glass to the truth that everything—eventually—must decline.