The Constant Anguish

• Belinda Abbas, Grade 11
• Poetry
• 2009

We see these children starving in the un-wealthiest ghettos,
We see the suffering but never stop to acknowledge their torment,
They suffer throughout their lives and if they survive they have no way of escaping their ongoing anguish and heartache,
Juvenile children thrive to feed their siblings yet the rest of the world goes on without questioning what is happening to these people? How can we offer our help and support?
We avoid the thought of others suffering by occupying our minds with something we think is more worthwhile.

Soldiers of more affluent countries invade those who aren’t so fortunate,
They kidnap children and sell them into slave labour or child labour,
They rape the women and leave them tormented with not only the mental state of mind but also the physical beating they have endured,
And the men who are full of innocents and innocuous are slaughtered like a piece of meat if they were to stand up for their country.

We never seem to stop and wonder how we live and compare to these people’s lives, their children’s lives to our own,
We don’t ever seem to think how we can help those who have nothing but agonising lives, destroyed homes and unthinkable torn apart hearts,
Will we ever find in our hearts to try and offer these people a better life?

A mother holds her three week old baby in the palms of her hands, her baby lied there fitting perfectly into his mother’s palms, his body malnourished, his bones visible for the world to see, he cries in anguish for the pain he feels little does he know his life will never improve. His mother felt no love for her child as her baby was the result of a rape, while she holds this baby in the palms of her hands she feels no love, no affection, she is constantly reminded of the one person who ruined her.

Belinda Abbas