The Experiment

|In 2022-23
|By Tulsa Review

by ANDY MORRIGAN | 3rd Place tie, student poetry contest

We built in a safeguard: of course, we did.
In The Beginning—back then, the darkness was hopeful.

The pixels of nonmatter pulsed with potential,
The clouds hovered in waiting before they existed.
Evolution molded everything into something different
Birds and grasses and
Those damn people.
It reshaped everything, corrupted everything, the hopeless, blind reach for the new
Which touched the back of their minds eventually
Inevitably
Decimated the reason between can and will and should.
It was never perfect—never even good
but the birth of human was the birth of pride
the birth of consciousness
the death of innocence
the start of the search
and now the oceans burn,
the sky melts
the New and the Bright caves in on itself according to its nature
Because we built in a safeguard.
Of course, we did.

Ω