If You Could Ask An Endling

Propaganda

Aye come here let's take a lil walk
Lil thought experiment
You can choose to ignore the ethereal music if you want
Allow us this creativity
If you could as an endling — here's what I would say

How different are we than you
What are we missing
What is familiar
What have we leveled up in
Do you see you in us
What pillars of survival did we pillage until they were pointless
I have so many questions

What was earth like then
Well don't answer that — how could you
Earth for you was just earth
Where did you go wrong — what was your fault
What was out of your hands
Were you wise enough to know
Were you lonely or didn't even notice
Did you know this was the end — did you panic
Were you confident that the best most efficient parts of you were living on in other forms
Like your closest relly learning all your best practices
Was that on purpose or were you just living
How do you just live
I have so many questions

When it's my time will I know
Did you know it was coming or did it sneak up on you
Will I look around and see a world I don't recognize
Mine incrementally removed from the terrarium without me even noticing
Was I consumed with consumption with no thought of the future
Was future to you as vague and made up as it is to me

Were you bitter
Were you tired
Were you excited about what the younglings and foundlings figured out
Was you dancing all over that fine line between OGs and old heads
Between battle bars and dad jokes
When you're in a golden era how can you possibly know

They say journalism is the first draft of history
I say history can only be understood through poetry
Were y'all writing any of this down
You know the ancient Egyptians didn't call themselves ancient right — they were just them
Do you think they knew their way of life was slipping away
How could they know their pantheon would find a pathway through Greek and Roman mythos
Europe practicing its many millennia long habit of tapping Africa for inspiration
But how could Hotep have possibly known
Did he know
Or maybe it never crossed your mind
Life was too beautiful and ugly — just like this

I should ask modern us
What was the last moment before smartphones cooked your brain
The last phone number you remembered
You are a dying breed

Am I even silly for naming this
Is immortality in these mortal coils pointless and aimless
What you made you couldn't sustain

So enjoy
Dance
Invest
Love hard give freely

This will end
This — what we have — never does

Rich men want Lazarus to go back
To leave the comforts of heaven and warn the living
That the life you are living ain't really it

But if you could ask an endling
Well doesn't that mean you are one

Beautiful endlings