I wish broccoli tasted like chocolate,
so fat kids would live forever.
I would like to change people as a whole,
especially arrogant, hypocritical people who claim:
"Fm a kinder, better person because I don't eat meat,"
yet wear makeup and skin products tested on thoughtful animals
just to look 'prettier' because Hollywood lied to you when you were a girl.
I want to change the same people who like pictures on Facebook
to 'end hunger in Africa' but yet buy affordable and 'in' clothing and shoes
made on the sweat, blood, and tears of hungry, underprivileged children.
If I could say one thing it's that WE ARE ALL TO BLAME.
If I could change the world I would change how hunger feels.
Not the hunger of a promising football player with padded leather boots,
or the hunger of an up-and-coming Wall Street businessman.
But the hunger of a single Burundi child coimting his ribs,
one, two, three, four...
who then stops to cradle the outline of his beating, tired, and spent heart.
I ask him how it feels and through cracked lips he whispers:
"My stomach is slapping my spine,
and the knuckles of my heart are knock, knock, knocking
on the door of my ribcage but nobody ever answers."
I wish I could change how kids at my school laugh and caU each other gay
like it's a bad word.
Even the nice ones who say "It's okay, my best friend is gay."
Hah, like it's not spiteful.
Words sprung from hate but the teachers still ignore it because
the bond between a man and a woman is sacred,
and no one wants to get in trouble.
If I could change myself, I would make it so that I believed in God,
and how even the hungry children and dead animals get to go to white-person heaven
alongside the fat bully who calls me gay.
But I can't believe in God,
because to me, no answers were written in scriptures 2000 years ago,
and no Priest can forgive what damage I've done to others.
And I don't think Til ever know why we're here,
or the meaning of life,
but I doubt I'll find It on the lips of lying Popes.
I wish I could change so that my red, raging words actually helped put out the fire
Instead of fueling the anger and hate that burned firom the tiny ember of a little boy who always felt so different.
I wish I could be satisfied,
I wish suburbia and mortgages with bill-pay phones and scratch lottery cards were
enough.
To answer your question,
I want to change everjdhlng.
E m i l e R a v e n e t
Dublin, 2013
Oct 11, 2025
Oct 11, 2025 at 6:45 PM UTC
I wish broccoli tasted like chocolate,
so fat kids would live forever.
I would like to change people as a whole,
especially arrogant, hypocritical people who claim:
"Fm a kinder, better person because I don't eat meat,"
yet wear makeup and skin products tested on thoughtful animals
just to look 'prettier' because Hollywood lied to you when you were a girl.
I want to change the same people who like pictures on Facebook
to 'end hunger in Africa' but yet buy affordable and 'in' clothing and shoes
made on the sweat, blood, and tears of hungry, underprivileged children.
If I could say one thing it's that WE ARE ALL TO BLAME.
If I could change the world I would change how hunger feels.
Not the hunger of a promising football player with padded leather boots,
or the hunger of an up-and-coming Wall Street businessman.
But the hunger of a single Burundi child coimting his ribs,
one, two, three, four...
who then stops to cradle the outline of his beating, tired, and spent heart.
I ask him how it feels and through cracked lips he whispers:
"My stomach is slapping my spine,
and the knuckles of my heart are knock, knock, knocking
on the door of my ribcage but nobody ever answers."
I wish I could change how kids at my school laugh and caU each other gay
like it's a bad word.
Even the nice ones who say "It's okay, my best friend is gay."
Hah, like it's not spiteful.
Words sprung from hate but the teachers still ignore it because
the bond between a man and a woman is sacred,
and no one wants to get in trouble.
If I could change myself, I would make it so that I believed in God,
and how even the hungry children and dead animals get to go to white-person heaven
alongside the fat bully who calls me gay.
But I can't believe in God,
because to me, no answers were written in scriptures 2000 years ago,
and no Priest can forgive what damage I've done to others.
And I don't think Til ever know why we're here,
or the meaning of life,
but I doubt I'll find It on the lips of lying Popes.
I wish I could change so that my red, raging words actually helped put out the fire
Instead of fueling the anger and hate that burned firom the tiny ember of a little boy who always felt so different.
I wish I could be satisfied,
I wish suburbia and mortgages with bill-pay phones and scratch lottery cards were
enough.
To answer your question,
I want to change everjdhlng.
E m i l e R a v e n e t
Dublin, 2013
Wine Dark Sea Magazine, 2013
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