Pains

 I am pained to see the suffering around me.

I am pained when I see a child muddling in the streets with the knife of responsibility that has cut him so deep at so tender an age. Where he is strangulated by hunger and crushed by destitution. I am pained.

I am pained when I see the happy and gullible girl trapped invisibly within the four walls, where she is untouched by wisdom, education and the euphoria of dreams. I am pained.

I am pained to see the man whose sole aim is to protect and provide, whose dreams died a thousand deaths by the very poison that keeps him alive.

I am pained to see the world that falsely promises to keep you happy and satisfied, so long as you consume to fetch your gluttony to the point where you just puke and still crave more. I am pained.

I am pained to see that you are reduced to a rat racing for the prize that your neighbours deemed right and then you dare spit venom upon those who choose to ‘see’ and escape to tread a path of their own and the malicious audacity you display to sing songs after the venom that you spat did not turn out to be potent enough to poison his dreams. I am pained.

I am pained to see the child who blamed and shamed himself until he could not see that the sorrows he bore were not that, which he asked for. I am pained.

I am pained to realise that you lost the spark that kept you alive when you observed that some fires burnt more, while yours; a little dim. I am pained.