Where did that little girl go?
The one who ran around tirelessly
Till she spewed up the juice she drank
As she darts a happy eye
Towards me and says
'Don't worry I'm on a juice cleanse'.

Where did that teenager go?
The one who ran around tirelessly
Trying to solve the problems of the world.
"No matter how hard you try dear,
You're never going to save the environment,
No matter how hard you try dear,
You're never going to cure AIDS right now,
No matter how hard you try dear,
You can't fix every relationship issues,
No matter how hard you try sweetheart,
There's just no way you can do all that alone."

But she tried, oh how she tried
and as tears ran down her cheeks,
she held a smile
with her eyes
still shimmering of a fading light
she said
'You watch me. I'll do it all,
I'll prove you wrong
I am a ******* champ'.

Where did that teenager go?
The one who objected to the ideas of impossibility,
The one who did her best to prove everyone wrong.
_____

"She's never going to make it to 18."
they said derisively towards her,
they said holding barbed wired words
across her shattering heart.

Why didn't you try to prove them wrong.
Where did THAT teenager go?
Why didn't you prove them wrong?

Memories and the pain linger
It becomes a part of me for life,
Even when I married your dad,
And became a common house wife
It lived with me.
Every remnant scar sitting on my skin
All the ache I have felt,
Not just physically but emotional.

You wouldn't understand
The tears that flow endlessly
Accompanying the memories
Of a mother burying their child.
I have a brother, oh well had a brother
My eldest sibling,
At 12 he died due to being malnourished
And my mother was brave, she had courage
She let out only a single tear
And buried him.
It was war, you had to be strong
or you would have been broken.
You would have been silent
But in thoughts, you were loudly spoken.

I can remember the scorching bridge
Running barefoot on hot metal
And witnessing crowds of family
Falling to knees to artillery damage.
The smell of human flesh being burnt
As crisp lay upon crisp, nothing felt fine.
I kept going however, at a young age
That's all you could really do after all.
I was born and then it happened,
There was no enjoyment,
There was nothing prior to it
So I kept running in hopes
That maybe we can actually
one day experience
what being a kid really is like.

You haven't realised how much is sacrificed
Through love and kinship
When you haven't seen blood flow like river
staining the palm trees where corpses lay upon.
We won't be able to appreciate every aspect of life
But we surely appreciate being alive.