Fig & Olive

People are concerned
I am concerned
For our children
The images they watch
The broken families they are shifted between
The pasted eyes on the TV screen
The pre-marital sex they’re encouraged to engaged in
Telling them to be safe with objects between them
But who will account for the pain they live in?

I’m far more afraid of the broken hearts they bare
The suicidal thoughts to realize their lover doesn’t care
The emotional roller coasters
They share their lives to the world
Yet thier parents are too busy to lend an ear
Young girls who cut
Young boys who rape
Your girls who give their bodies, that’s what it takes to get a date
Young boys who are ‘soft’ if they say no
Boys who are left to raise themselves
No man shows them how to grow

Many people think I am a success
Alhumduillah by God’s grace
“Still in the deen, graduated Ivy League”
Maybe one day I’ll share my own case
Who would I be if my parents decided marriage was too difficult
They had to leave
Thier own interests were more important
There lives worth the personal pursuit of happiness
Who would I be if I faced the fate of millions of children
Left by parents
Who walk away

And they walk away
Leaving them exposed
To the deceit and lies
Of those with the most capital to gain
It doesn’t cost much to be pious
But is a fortune to be deviant
Parties and condoms and hotels and parties cost money
Love of God doesn’t cost a dime

You might have notice by now
This poem doesn’t rhyme
The words aren’t in synch
They reflect the disjointed world our children live in
Your children don’t belong to you
To do as you please
They are a trust from God
To be raised in a way that will raise them up
Not put them down
You diminish their worth by allowing them to be a slave to their desires
You prepare them for the fire

The sexual abuse in this country is alarming
The rates of psychopathology in our kids continue to rise
The pursuit of happiness is your disguise
So adults have sex with people they don’t want to have children with
And children are raised by people who don’t want to have children

And life is miserable
And adolescents are in rage
We ask who’s to blame
But don’t lend our own names

We want happiness today
So we ruin the future
No one stays together for the kids that’s all to quaint
And women go to laboratories and have babies by themselves
And same sex couples await the arrival of a baby from their mother’s womb
And no one seems to think
That a human being without knowledge of their past
Is incomplete

And its a bleak future for our children
They need intercession
But Allah knows even in the deepest depths of night
He lays out his blessings