We wanted to own the future, so we started with the soil, taking people as prisoners, making them slaves to “progress.” Knowing the earth held the answers, we raped her. We stole from her. We brutalized the planet, demanding she give us the way forward, and when she wouldn’t give us the answers we wanted, we tried to enslave her, too. Centuries later, we live in plastic cities built on the ashes of our forgotten ancestors’ altars to the earth.