By Aya Khalaf | Staff Writer
The alarm goes off at 6 AM,
Here goes another day.
Get up,
Get dressed,
Sit down,
Start writing.
“Focus!” my mentor shouts,
As she startles me,
Drawing me away from my usual daydreams
Of what the mere word of ‘dream’ stands for.
They say you must follow your future passions,
Yet I’m expected to score straight A’s before the year starts.
You must pay respect towards your teachers,
Yet their respect for you must be earned.
Everyone talks to you like you should change,
When you haven’t even gotten to find out who you are.
Don’t get me wrong,
We were all born with oceans and galaxies,
Hurricanes and whirlwinds,
All this magic inside us.
But what about now?
Is it all sucked out because of a forced dream,
That the older generation yearns to experience through us?
Or because of our awareness that
The rest of our youth’s magic is getting sucked,
Right from the instant they took their first breath?
Those kids who got welcomed to the world
With the sounds of bombing and screaming,
Instead of chants and laughs.
Those kids who have no place to call school,
Only the little burnt pages left within the rubbles.
Those kids who have no dreams and no hopes,
But to stay alive to see the light of day one more time.
Those kids who do not struggle to sleep because of an exam,
Rather over the possibility of being killed any second.
Our brothers and sisters around the world
Scream for the mere wish of an education.
They languish for any opportunity to use
And speak up to the world in hopes of being saved,
But will somebody ever lend an ear and listen
To these little whispers of broken dreams?