If only I could go back in time

To rectify all my mistakes.

All that I shouldn’t have said,

Yet still felt the need to say.

Why did I even feel that need?

I, too, was just a child, right?

 

Be the example,

Show them they are wrong.

Show them we are no beasts.

Show them we can be equal.

Act mature,

Be mature.

Show them they are wrong.

So many rules and restrictions.

Did I even realise what I was saying?

What I was asking them to be?

 

Children see colour and

paint their pages full of it.

Adults see colour and

disgust paints their words.

How come so?

Don’t be a child,

just because you’re skin colour is brown.

Don’t be a child,

just because of the language 

that comes out of your mouth.

Don’t be a child,

I say to a child.

Because they differ from the majority.

How unfair is that to say?

 

Why should we differentiate

based on colour and race?

How could we say

a child should not be a child?

Why must one throw away 

their childhood to prove they

are worthy of love 

and respect

and equality,

when we are already more than enough?

 

I wish I could hug them all.

Every child,

That resembles me.

That felt the need

To be the adult.

To prove they were all wrong.

To be perfect.

I want to wrap them all up

In my scar-marred arms.

Whispering in their ear,

wrapped up in a tender embrace,

‘It's okay to be a child.’