Mission to Mars

This was something I wrote for a writing project, as part of an online community I’m a part of. I (of course) chose to write a poem, but the topic was a future setting where mankind was going to Mars. I missed the deadline to submit for the project, so this has been hanging out in my notebook and needs a home.
If you’re a creative type, and you’ve never heard of hitRECord I suggest checking it out. It works as a production company, they make all kinds of art and media and collaborate on it. If you’re at all curious, there is probably something for you there.

 

We have wasted and turned to dust
What once was beautiful green and lush
Now we can travel to the red world above
But what can she really offer us?

Us, who destroy and degrade and consume
Us, who blindly orchestrate our own doom

I stand on charred earth
And look up at the stars
But it feels wrong to join them
To claim planets as ours

Maybe, as they say, it was
An inevitable evolution
Or maybe it’s a hail mary
A kind of desperate delusion

Either way it feels wrong
To leave the earth we destroyed
Disrespected, neglected
Treated like a toy

Even if mankind makes it to Mars
We will inevitably bring
Everything that will eventually
Destroy us from within

you’re here

i don’t know
what the future
will hold
i don’t know
where this story
will go

all i know
is you’re here
in my heart
here in my head
there in my dreams
when i lay down
in bed

i don’t know if you
will ever love me again
i don’t know if we’ll
ever really be friends

still with me, for now

i’m finally in that place
where i’m looking ahead
instead of agonizing over
what i would have done instead

i’ve been filling my time
with people and places
catching up with many
old familiar faces

reminding myself
of what i like about who i am
and even remembering
to be better in the ways i can

but it’s still you
in the future i see
because that is still
what feels right to me

sometimes i talk to you
as if you were right there
and i’ll start to feel
that familiar, comforting air

i keep you in my thoughts
every single day
so that you are still
with me, in a way

it makes it hard for me to decide
what i want for myself
ideas stacked like the paperbacks
lining the top bookshelf

but i’m moving on like i should
with a life that’s my own
and in some ways, already
i can see that i’ve grown

there’s still a long road ahead
believe me, i know
but at least, for now
you’re still with me
wherever i go

forward

what do you have to give up
in order to reach your potential
how do you choose priorities
among the things
you find essential
to your future
or your happiness
they’re not always the same
at the time you have to choose
it can be hard to explain
what it is that you want
and more importantly, why
you’re scared to death
that life is passing you by

no one wants to wake up
ten years down the line
and wonder what the hell happened
to the dreams they once had in mind

but how do you pick yourself up
and begin to move forward
when you no longer know
what it is you’re moving toward

do you have to know
who you are
in order to pick up the pace
or does that come when you
finally finish the race