Would I have been someone who
Would help fuel the slave trade,
Without knowing how to be someone
To make a change instead?

Would I have sold my daughter
To help pay for my life,
Without caring what
Would become of her’s instead?

Would I have thought twice
Before buying a cigarette,
Knowing that I would be helping
A child lose his childhood to hard labor?

Would I have paid 50 dollars
To pick up a prostitute,
Knowing that through her beauty
Lays a face of the abused?

Would I have sat at my computer
Watching things my wife wouldn’t approve of,
Thinking about how to prevent this
Instead of thinking when to click to the next site?

Would I have been someone
To take that young daughter,
And fulfill my own needs
Instead of loving her like her father should have?

Would I have asked these things
Without knowing these things do happen,
Or would I have asked these things
Without knowing that I am the change?


Matthew Jackson © 2008
Age 14