Children And Suicide
They were so near the morning of their days
The dew still clung to laughter on their shoes,
The world was meant to teach them gentler ways
Of growing strong beneath forgiving blues.
They carried hearts too open for the storm,
Too bright for rooms where sorrow learned to shout;
Small hands held grief that had no fitting form,
And nowhere safe to set the burden down.
We tell them time will soften every ache,
That pain grows tired and learns to pass away—
But time is faith a child cannot yet take
When night is long and hope has lost its way.
O listen—every silence that they keep
Is not consent but wonder mixed with fear;
They do not choose the dark, they fall asleep
Believing no one sees them standing here.
The world is loud with verdicts, thin with grace,
Too quick to turn from tears it cannot name;
A child learns shame by reading every face
That looks away and lets them bear the blame.
If love were air, none ever would depart—
No breath would fail, no light be locked away;
It is not death they seek, but rest for heart,
A quiet place where hurting words can’t stay.
So hold them while the night is still undone,
Speak hope aloud before it learns to hide;
For every child is someone’s rising sun,
And no small life was meant to be denied.
Let mercy come before the final cry,
Let listening be the bravest thing we do;
The child who stands too close to asking why
Is only asking if this world is true.
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