^{_{This piece was written for the Green Office’s Spring Poetry competition, on the theme: Environmental Guilt, which took place between the months of April-May 2022.}}

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The world is like a book

and to travel is to read

So I’ll start really young

and be sure to complete

Drinking from the fountains

until they all fall dry

diving to the reefs

before they wilt and die

Taste, see and experience

everything on earth

I want to touch and feel

All that she is worth

But when I watch a film

On the small airplane TV

I know we shred glaciers

For the breeze of my AC

I want to read the book

that we call the world

but I know all my reading

will leave the spine unfurled