The rivers never stopped flowing.
But the walls were built — and we called them drought.
As if the Earth forgot how to rain.
As if the clouds had grown stingy.
As if aquifers had disappeared, not been pumped dry, rerouted, sold.
We were taught to see water as scarcity —
a resource to be owned, rationed, billed, or fought for.
But water is not a commodity.
It is a cycle.
A ceremony.
A living mirror of life’s return.
It Was of the Cycle
Rain became runoff.
Rivers were straightened, dammed, owned, renamed.
Groundwater was extracted without replenishment.
Watersheds were sealed in concrete and asphalt.
Plastic pipes replaced the soil’s sponge.
And still we were told:
“There’s not enough.”
Not enough to share.
Not enough to grow.
Not enough to be free.
This was never true.
She rises as mist.
She falls as grace.
She flows downhill, not because she’s forced —
but because she remembers where to go.
Nature has no water shortage.
Only systems that break the path of return.
Rainwater harvesting made illegal in many states
Indigenous irrigation methods erased
Agribusiness using 80% of freshwater, while citizens are fined for lawn watering
Bottle companies extract millions of gallons from aquifers and sell it back in plastic
All while the oceans remain full.
The clouds still form.
And the rain still falls on empty ground.
This is the second cut — the fluid wound.
To open this SLIT is to see that what was “lost” was never missing —
just redirected, monetized, and obscured.
The Matrix framed water as lack,
but nature teaches it as overflow.
Water was never scarce.
Only hoarded.
Catch rain where it falls.
Let greywater return to earth.
Uncap the rivers.
Restore the sponge of soil.
Trust the clouds again.
Every time you allow water to return to water, you reject the lie.
You slit the spell.
You remember the planet is not dying.
She is dammed.
“They made us fear thirst.
But water was never gone.
Only stolen from its circle.”