Rise, Poor Child

Psst… psst…

Yes, I’m whispering to you.

Yes, you — you with tired eyes and tender soul.

Wake up, child.

No one is coming to save you.

None of us chooses where we are born,

None of us chooses the soil that cradles us,

None of us chooses when the sky will call us home,

Or how long we walk this earth.

I see the pain stitched into your tears.

You’ve carried burdens too heavy for your fragile hands.

You grew up too soon,

Joy a stranger to your heart,

Comfort a distant rumor to your feet.

You don’t know what it means to wear beauty —

For you, beauty is cloth without holes —

And even that, you cannot afford.

You dream of family, whole and warm,

A refuge from the storm of poverty.

You hoped that, at least,

Something good would grow in your life —

A bloom, a beam of light.

But poor child,

The world owes you nothing.

Not even pity.

We do not choose the past we are born into,

But we choose the path we walk.

Choose, child.

Choose the path of defiance —

The refusal to drown where your ancestors have sunk.

Choose the path where your footsteps

Are not swallowed by the dust of despair.

Reject the silence,

Reject the sorrow handed to you like inheritance.

Get up, poor child.

Get up, for the world does not pause for your tears.

You will walk three times as far,

You will labor five times as hard.

Yes, there are others born into abundance,

Their path smoother, their sky brighter.

You may never catch up to them,

But you are not meant to.

Poor child —

What dream haunts your nights?

What future calls to you from the darkness?

Hold it close.

Wake up every day and chase it.

Let it burn in you brighter than hunger.

No one owes you a softer life.

No one will cut you a line

Because your hands are empty.

Poverty is not an excuse,

Poverty is not a pass.

Poverty is a thief —

And you must outrun it.

Run, child.

Run from the shadows that clutch at your ankles.

Run from the voice that says you deserve less.

Run from the pity that would chain you in place.

Run —

Because the world will only hear your voice

When you rise loud enough to be known.

Poor child,

Build the life you wish you were born into.

Build mansions where you once slept on dirt.

Build tables where none existed.

Build a lineage of wealth,

A future where your children

Will never know the taste of empty.

Get up, poor child.

There’s no time for pity parties here.

Not on this side of the world.

I know you went to school barefoot.

I know your belly has never known enough.

I know the only warmth you’ve felt

Is the sun burning your skin.

I know your mother’s smile is a stranger to you,

And your father’s pride a ghost.

Poverty has robbed you, stripped you bare —

But it does not own you.

This is the life you were born into.

But it is not the life you must die in.

So rise, poor child.

The world will never weep with you,

But it will celebrate your victory.

Get up, poor child.

Rise.

There is no other way.