Innocence Gone

Facing reality is tough. BTW, this is NOT a very good poem.

Innocence Gone

I saw the world around me and I changed,
Youthful naivity vanishes in a single second,
Realization of a corrupted, cut-throat world,
Swarming the once utopian world in which we live.

Understanding that pink flowers and picket fences,
belong only to a select few,
And that hunger, cold and illness are far more frequent,
Seeing that those less fortunate,
Did nothing to deserve their poverty,
Changed me.

When I opened my eyes and saw the world,
My faith in humanity was gone in a moment,
Now I see the world a place where people kill,
And compassion is an abstract illusion.

We were blessed with this Earth in the beginning,
Equal to all other life,
But we have abused our human-given strength,
To kill; be it flora, fauna or each other,
But to kill is to kill.

I saw the world around me and I changed,
In an instant my outlook was altered,
In a second my priorities changed,
And I learned in one single second,
No one can be prepared for reality.