GRWM // #PlanetOrPlastic

GRWM

My morning is filled with gray skies. My mother braids my hair as best she can with her weak hands. When she starts coughing I tell her to lie back in bed and kiss her on the forehead.

I stand at the edge of the boat in my wetsuit, waiting for my brother. After he hands me my goggles, we count to three underneath our breaths, and then dive in.

As we scour the water, hands roaming past plastic and cardboard and fabric, I think of what my grandmother used to tell me each night, before the smoke got to her lungs. The ocean used to be clear and blue, and it sparkled with the light of the sun. I would go to sleep wishing to wake up to such a world, but those wishes drowned beneath chemical-infested waters.

My brother and I swim over white, skeleton-like sculptures. My grandmother called it a reef. They were all the colors of the rainbow, and you could see all sorts of creatures darting through them. But all I see are plastic bags snagged on bones.

As my brother swims to the shallower parts of the "reef", I dive over the edge. The sudden darkness used to startle me, but now I see that nothing is as dark as the gray skies above this earth.

The sun drags itself through the sky as I stuff my bag full with what will help our family survive a little longer. Creatures swim by throughout the day, disappearing as quickly as they appear. They are bloated carcasses with bloody tails, their skin dying with every day that passes.

I go up thrice for air, and twice for a bathroom break. When I finally haul myself out of the water for good, the sky is a dirtied orange. My brother is already back on the boat, tending to my mother. I peel off my wetsuit and change into thick clothes to protect me from the air. My hair dries into a scraggly mess as I collect the sellable materials and steer our boat towards land.

I anchor on the beach and set off, trudging through the dirty and polluted sand. Soon enough, I see the Settlement: a dark silhouette of decrepit roofs and crumbling huts underneath layers of smog. My grandmother told me that marketplaces such as these used to be lively, swarming with breath and talk. But as I push my way through the masses, I hear nothing but grumbles and the clinking of coins.

My eyes flash upwards towards the gray sky, and I pause. All around me, the world moves like a rusted, squeaking wheel. I breathe, and move with it. My grandmother's voice fades away, and I keep on walking. I see my future laid out in front of me: my hands will wrinkle, my lungs will crack and deflate, and I will leave this world at sea. I was birthed into the mistakes I see everyday, and I will die from them.