What was the arctic before it became an oil well?
What was a forest overrun with trees?
What was my name before I was a sibling?
What was my right before I’d been stamped?
Did I come straight from a hologram?
Was I brought home on a road?
Whence and where from did the light come?
And the warmth, did it come before gas, painted and housed within four block walls of a thousand pixels per inch?
Where did I walk to before a wood chipped trail led my way?
How did the day fill before the calendar?
Can a city be a city without city lights?
How did one tarry about a late night corner before floating electric drones showed I was withing safety?
Because dammit, I’m starting to wonder
Is there any point in the quest?
What is the point in stuffing our bellies?
Where did the idea of nik-naks come hither from?
How did function get replaced by aesthetics?
When did choice become demand?
When did want become a dire need?
Why did our brothers and sisters turn from extensions of ourselves to examples of our desires?
When did we lose all of our trust?
And where has my community resettled?
Where has my tree grown its roots?
Where is my moon?
This is a protest poem