There once was a child
Infinitely kind
With a bright mind.
But the crack of dawn
Made her an eternal pawn
In a life, she did not spawn.
Her every morning
Brought her balling
She woke up to bombs and cries
Her parents she saw not
She heard so much lies
To believe she couldn’t
She searched and searched
Scoured the land
In a world so lost
Unaware of the childhood cost.
Looking around
There was nothing to be found
Only but schools built on debris
and not a single tree
Dusty refugee camps
One and all in a cramp
New rules of living
Starving and surviving
Hidden under lamps
Of inequality and no hope.
Years passed by
She was still a child
Who forgot how to be so kind
Yet people around were blind
To her yearning for home
That made her heart so lone
For she now belonged,
To a place unknown.
Nandhitha Babuji is a 17-year-old (turning 18 next month) aspiring poet from Tamil Nadu, passionate about using her words to show solidarity against children’s issues.
