What is Owed

I yearn to see a world enshrined in equality and peace for all. The energy builds inside me just with the dreams and hopes of what the world could one day be, of what it should be now. My heart breaks for those who may never see it become reality, but still I fight and I rejoice for those who will reap the benefits of our works now, and work we must for this cannot be or reality and we cannot allow the world to continue on this treacherous path to destruction.

I yearn to see a world enshrined in equality and peace for all. I hear the sounds of children weeping for a childhood taken from them, and I weep with them as they look upon the rubble and ruins of what was once their home, as they look on the memories destroyed in those bricks that were once their comfort. I cry out in anger as I watch their bare feet bleed onto the broken glass as they make their way from the rubble that buries their childhood, buries their homes, buries their families, walking off into an uncertain future with no sense of which direction will give them the safety that has now been lost to them. Too young they are to make it in this world by themselves, and yet everywhere they turn they are met with scorn, met by cruelty that begins to color the rest of their lives and met with faces like theirs, weeping and crying out and met only with the volume of silence.

I yearn to see a world enshrined in equality and peace for all. I hear yells of pain, the sound so raw and grating that it shakes me even from where I am, though they not always be near me. I hear them from across the oceans, from across the country, from across my town, not a place in this world do I not hear the pain sounding out in waves as their eyes look upon a world that has failed them, one that has forsaken them and damned them to a life with no light. And the accusations are loud and burn as they pelt my skin like stones. I have betrayed them for I have seen, I have heard but I have ignored and I have fed into the lies told to me that I cannot help, that I should not help because I should not care. They see their yells being received, only to be met with scorn, cruelty and the volume of silence.

I yearn to see a world enshrined in equality and peace for all. And my eyes are now open for me to see through the film that once kept me blind to the power I hold and I know then that I owe it to them to speak out, to keep aware always and never again let the guise of a blissful ignorance cover my eyes. I know then that I owe it to them to fight, and to hold accountable those who have allowed this to happen, those who have been given the power that has allowed them to strip us of our dignity and our humanity.

I yearn to see a world enshrined in equality and peace for all. And I see now, that they, are not a them, and I, am not a me but we are one, and our duty is to fight to make a world enshrined in equality and peace for all.

I yearn to see a world enshrined in equality and peace for all. And I know that this, now, is not what the world is supposed to be, for there should be no person going to bed hungry, or a person who goes to sleep on the streets of rubble where their home once lay. No person should have to fight for their lives in the ways that we have been trained to believe, the gifts of life, liberty and happiness should be given freely and not worked for as we have been told to believe. No person should have to worry about what they wear for fear of getting gunned down by those who have sworn to protect them, No person should have to choose death over healthcare because they do not want to inflict a financial burden on their loved ones. No person should have to hid themselves for fear of being killed for loving who they love or being who they are. No person should have to watch their homes and their families being bombed for faults not of their own. No person should have to live a life driven by the fear to say no should this compromise their safety or worried about compromises being made about her right to her body when she has not even been invited to the discussions taking place. No person should have to worry about being forgotten and living in a world not designed to accommodate them for they have been deemed not worthy of thought.

I yearn to see a world enshrined in equality and peace for all. And I want for this world so much more, and so I will keep fighting. I will continue the fight of my ancestors, the fight for those too young to fight now and the fight for those not yet born. So that they may come into a world ready to love them, protect them, enrich them and a world worthy enough for them to inherit.