This poem is based on true events I saw while on the streets of Cambodia. As you read, don’t forget the power of the prayers you give to God. Continue to ask Jesus to intercede as well on these children’s behalf.
The Life of a Street Kid:
Where is Mother and Father?
I wait, I search, I scan so many faces
Yet none of them are the ones with their traces.
Where is Mother and Father?
I once knew what I had
I was once a son, a child… I was once glad.
My brothers have become those just like me
My sisters taken away.
“Be a man,” they say. “Be a man,” they say.
We found bags today and used them as fumes.
Glue that once held life together now holds my gloom.
My brothers and I, we stick together in our doom.
I see people passing by as they gawk and stare.
Maybe they noticed my imperfect hair.
Sometimes I see other kids alongside them,
And think of my mother and my father, it’s just not fair.
Where is my own family to care?
My stomach rumbles, my muscles weak.
Look! Someone with light skin, my chance to speak!
I beg for food and get turned away, they sit at their tables
Eating, Drinking, Laughing all day.
My worst fear comes in the form of the night
We are scared of the dark… yet we still fight.
We walk by many women all made up with their crew
Their eyes look as dead as ours, their strength gone too.
They seem to be surviving, they seem to be blue.
I can’t sleep, it’s only safe in the day.
My only toy someone might take and fray.
I could be run off because I have nowhere to lay,
I must stay awake, I say. I must stay awake, I say.
Morning has come, but I wish it didn’t stay.
My stomach still cries, my legs give way.
I find a spot on the sidewalk to sleep and dream,
While flies attack at once in a team.
Perhaps it was the small bit of rice beside my hips,
The remains on the ground and on my lips.
I feel people walk by, blocking the sun for just a bit.
They know, they see, and go past this rubbage pit.
I don’t want to wake up, I don’t want to see
Another day of rejection, another day of me.
I was once somebody’s baby, on somebody’s team.
But now I am thrown in tears that can’t and won’t stream.
I’ve grown too fast, but not fast enough,
For days like today I am not tough.
If one person loved me, it would be a bluff,
Yet somehow, I believe that I wouldn’t be so gruff.
So we go on and we huff, my brothers and me.
We huff and we huff until we have some glee.
I can’t help asking “Where’s mother and father?” again,
Behold another day, maybe I’ll know then.
