I Have a Dream …

"Their toys are tools clasped in frail, feeble hands; their companion, fear

Children of all sexes, races and ages forced into market of abuse and exploitation

Many lashed out their houses; cries fading into space with no one to hear

Slipped away like time, the roots of life, childhood, and marred is education

Molested relentlessly until clothes are drained with tears and lips start to bleed

Slapped and beaten and thrown aside like dirt, to console themselves in the dusk

Palm lines numb, buried behind scrapes and scars; their destinies nowhere to lead

Drinking their own tears and cursing fate at being treated so maliciously and brusque

I have a dream that worms of abuse will not eat away those innocent petals of roses

I have a dream that our durable-iron nature of love and affection will not rust away

I have a dream that we will stop malevolent behaviour before the door of hope closes

I have a dream that torture will halt before only thorns remain in the faith bouquet

Has egocentricity flooded humanity's goblet that all virtues, all morals are spilling out?

To which I crave that child trafficking be obstructed without more ado

As we eat appetising food, for them every day is a famine and every day is a drought

Have humans titled underprivileged and neglected children under a taboo?

There exist organisations such as CRY, all we have to do is lend a hand

To save thousands alienated from their homelands that have forgotten to hope

Without losing willpower let's bring freedom out of a reverie lost into skies to land

Let's sew a blanket of future for those naive children, fabricate a better scope

I have a dream that consideration will not erode into the wild river of brutality

I have a dream that courage will not melt into the blistering lava of sheer malice

I have a dream that the ignorance hatchet will not slice children to mortality

I have a dream that realisation and combat will flood the sympathy chalice

In our hands lie lives of raw fruits which need affection and tenderness to ripen

The hands, that should be holding our finger and learning, hold knives

We must not make determinations and fortitudes fall into abuse's deep dark glen

Only the pill of humanity will medicate wounds, even if overdosed, in their lives"

(CRY is short for Child Relief and You, a non-profit organisation in India.)

By Jasleen Kaur

Grade 11

Ruamrudee International School