Yulia Belousova

Mother, I miss you.
I long to be reunited with you, to transcend this eternal illusion of separation.
The sacred wound of humanity, the idea that there is me and there is you.
Forgive me for looking outside for so long when you were always here, close,
under my feet
holding me on your shoulders
I take off my shoes, all the uniforms I've spent years earning, building and nurturing, to
feel your touch.
I bow my head here, in the geographical centre of the land that helped me to open my
eyes.
In the desert, where your waters have dried up, where we have polluted your lakes, where
you suffer most: the heat, the absence, the emptiness.
You have always held me in your arms, even when I was flying too high in the clouds.
I sit on my knees and lower my forehead closer to the ground, closer to you.
You have never left me
You are always there, with me, in me.
My flesh is a piece of you, a small grain of sand in this ocean.
Forgive us, for we truly do not know what we are doing.
Forgive us for going to the cities, building the walls and the barriers just to forget you.
I walk the streets of the metropolis and I feel your pain.
Why have we been blind for so long?
Your patience knows no bounds, nor does human stupidity.
I hear you calling us home
I don't know what home is; I've never had one.
I feel unsafe in a room with four walls and one entrance.
I haven't slept for 3 years; my eyelids are heavy. Insomnia is my closest sister.
How many sleepless nights did you spend raising me and my brothers and sisters?
Almost 8 billion...
I can hear you calling us home, to you. You ask only one favour, to stop poisoning the air
you give us every day.
Stop poisoning the water we drink, our blood, the rivers, the oceans.
To save the forest and the earth.
I don't know how. And that hurts.
I only have my voice and my hands.
For now.
And I know. I'm not the only one who hears your call.