Worth a read

'If I had my life over' By Belinda Emmett (written after she found out she was dying from cancer) I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the Earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for a day... I would have burned the pink candle sculpted into a rose before it melted in storage... I would have talked less and listened more... I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained or the sofa faded... I would have eaten popcorn in the 'good' living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace... I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth... I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband... I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed... I would have sat on the lawn with my grass stains... I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while watching life... I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil or was guaranteed to last a lifetime...

Innocence lost

Innocence lost

Those twinkling eyes
Mischievous looks
Somersaulting and gyrating
Over petty little things
Ragged, torn out and discarded
Their childhood innocence
Lost amidst hands of destiny

Life lost over smoke
Marijuana, alcohol and drugs
They don’t struggle
Cramming notes or homework
Books are distant enemy
Freedom is what is free
With no tags attached
Childhood somewhere lost
With only home being
Open sky and station platform

Their little hands
Soaked in dirt layer
Not by playing in the garden
Nor have they lost a cricket match
But sweeping, cleaning and swapping
Is all that these little kids
Look forward to
With the dawn of the day
By the dusk they are tired
And drunk or doped

They talk like adults
Not like little children should
They earn their living
And content they are
With their lives
That begins at the railway track
And ends in oblivion

They don’t play heed
To their lost childhood
Innocence is lost
Forever for eternity
For the eyes that should dream
Have none to live
With day bygone
So is their innocence
Lost and forgotten
Vanished into thin air

How I wish I could buy
Their childhood and innocence
And give it back to them
So that those twinkling eyes
Will have a hope
For a better tomorrow