Dear Residents,

How are you? I am asking you out of courtesy, however I know you aren’t all doing well. Neither am I, which is why I need to speak with you. Our lives are being conflicted by some issues I want us to fix.

Lately, I’ve noticed I have a bad fever. My temperature is rising every day, and according to what the climate experts say, it’s not going down. I just can’t seem to hold myself together. I’m sweating so badly that my poles keep dripping away. Sometimes, my winds spin around from all the hot and cold sweats I have, and it gets so bad that I wipe out everything in my way. My bodies of land are also really uneven. I have some dry, rough patches here, and then some over-moisturized areas with flooding water there. I keep feeling these pains drilling into my crust and they make me tremble. It’s been hard to breathe, too, like something is clogging my airways. Maybe it’s the smelly pits dug into me that hold all your remnants --the ones you burn sometimes. I feel so dirty, but no shower of rain, no wave, can seem to wash me clean.

All these changes are happening so fast; I just can’t keep up. I’ve also noticed you can’t keep up either. I’m so sorry you have to deal with them, and then deal with the issues between yourselves. I see that you’re still fighting over me. I love being wanted and all, but there’s plenty of me to go around and give everybody what they need. I hate watching people die, and it’s even worse when I can’t do anything to help.

I wish I could give you food, but these dry patches won’t go away! And I wish I could help you breathe, but I can’t clear my air. I hate shaking uncontrollably. I wish I could stop sweating and raising my sea level. I wish I could stop destroying your cities and ecosystems, but the hot and cold sweats keep coming. I wish this fever would go down!

I’ve been thinking, and I’m starting to think this fever isn’t my fault. My strange climate patterns are killing organisms all over, and I think they’re killing you too. See, I didn’t start having these symptoms until your numbers started growing and you started utilizing our resources in wasteful ways. I love having you all here, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think your behavior is respectful. You and I, along with your fellow organisms, once played balanced roles in the way of life. But now, you’ve upset this balance by using resources, chemicals and fossil fuels in irresponsible ways. You’re using dead organisms to fuel the death of more organisms, including yourself. I understand that you may like warmer temperatures, and that cruising around in cars, boats and planes is fun, but do you feel good about doing those things knowing that they may be the death of your ancestors and descendants? That they may be the death of me, your planet?

I want to work things out so that we can both live our lives in full. I hate having these unnatural disasters, and I’m sure you do too. If we keep hurting each other ... don’t want to think about it. We can’t let that happen. I don’t want you to leave; you are my home, as much as I am yours.

Love,

Your Home, Earth

Note from the writer: A lot of the time when I write something, it springs from impulse. I was reading "Decolonizing Methodologies" by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, and there was a part of a chapter that discussed some indigenous views of our Earth, and how it differs from a Western perspective. I immediately began to think about what our planet would want and say to us, and I wrote this piece as if Earth was a person, mentally similar to us, feeling what we felt. Global warming, climate change, or whatever you may call it, is real. From what plenty of scientific knowledge indicates, it's caused by us, and there isn't a natural way for the natural world to cleanse itself. Our wasteful lifestyles are shortening life's success on this planet, and I hope this piece raises your concern and awareness.