I am 20 years old but I am 40
Because when I was 12, I was 20
My bones creaked with every step I took
As I carried the world’s problems on my small shoulders
Eyebrows scrunched, glasses perched on the end of my nose
As I calculated how I could save the world
Miss. World peace
That’s what I was known for
A concept that was so simple to me
Yet the world mocked me and marked me as naive
But the older I get
The more I understand that I was never naive
That the world I dreamt of wasn’t foolish, it was possible
But those who are blinded by selfishness are embodied with an evil that cannot see a future too pure for them
A future that my soul lost hope in ever seeing when they pulled my head underwater
I wake up tired
The life draining from my eyes with each day the sun rises
Every news headline drowns my heart in a sea of rage
A rage that consumes me with a thirst for revenge
Revenge for the children that were failed by the system
Failed by humanity
Failed by you
Because I was just 12 years old when I looked into the eyes of a Syrian child
Surrounded by debris of a beautiful country he never saw
His cries were barely audible over the sounds of bombs
But my ears heard every ounce of pain that left his small body
“I will tell God everything”.
His words have carried me all those years
They’re the echo I hear when I see another child failed by society
From school shootings, abuse, trafficking, war
Why have we accepted this as reality?
Normalized children dying in classrooms
While on the other side of the world, girls are dying for wanting an education
I Cannot work a 9-5
Not under a government that blatantly refused to fix Flint’s water
Not under a government whose priority is banning an app
Instead of protecting its children from the abuse of the Second Amendment
Will we ever get tired of our own bullshit?
Last year I read an article about Bill Gates injecting Indian And African babies with polio
and their mothers with HIV
Today I watched five videos of Sweden Police ripping Muslim babies from their mother’s breasts to make a profit from adoption
I saw black bodies chained together in Libya where the cycle of slavery never ended,
it’s just ignored
In the Middle East, African maids are raped and tortured before being killed,
I know a family who is still being denied seeing the body of their daughter
Tell me with all this money we waste on wars
Who is the real enemy?
What cause is so valuable that we shed blood on land that has no value?
Who are you to put a price on human life?
God Is love, that I do not deny,
but let it also be known that my God is also wrath
And when his wrath burns,
may it pour over the offenders who have insulted humanity
Everything
Has an end
And when mine comes,
I too, will tell God everything
Perpetual Kahindo is a second-year political science major. PK973548@wcupa.edu.