Jonathan Kistner
You are dripping with hypocrisy.
You claim to be an environmentalist.
You stomp hard in those protests,
waving your signs that say
“Save Mother Earth—There is NO Plan B!”
But when you get home and you feel drained
you go to your Keurig and pop in a K-cup,
placing your double insulated thermos underneath,
covered with stickers to show just how woke you are—
A sticker of Greta Thunberg.
A sticker that says “reduce, reuse, recycle.”
A sticker of Earth melting in an ice-cream cone.
But you don’t recycle.
You throw cans in the trash
and buy artificial plants
that you take pictures of and post to Instagram
with the hashtag “green thumb” and “plant mama.”
Secretly, you believe it’s more convenient
to use plastic water bottles instead of that
BPA free bottle you just bought from Amazon
with overnight delivery.
You are too embarrassed to say so,
but next month you’re going to
Seaworld in San Diego.
In a tweet that you’ve since deleted
You said “I just want to sit in the splash zone!”
whale emojiwater droplet emojiumbrella emoji
Put some pep in your step, girl.
Pop another K-cup and paint another sign.
Prepare for the next climate change protest
outside your local politician’s home.
But do not call yourself an environmentalist
because you, my dear, are dripping with hypocrisy.
Jonathan Kistner is an ASU alumni class of 2016. He has his BA in English with emphasis in Creative Writing. Jonathan has served as a poetry editor for ASU’s Canyon Voices Literary and Art Magazine. He is also one of the founding editors of rinky dink press, which publishes micropoetry micro-zines. His poetry has previously been featured in Write On, Downtown Issue 9 and 10 along with Canyon Voices Issue 12. Currently, Jonathan is experimenting with different types of poetry. He strives to incorporate the human experience in everything he writes and is proud to call himself an LGBTQ poet.
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