“Oh no, not another one,”
“It’s happened again,”
And again.
And again.
And again.
15-year-old stabbed to death yards from school gates,
Business studies student stabbed to death near university halls,
Teenager stabbed in chicken shop,
16-year-old stabbed in the head yards from secondary school;
Teenager stabbed,
Teenager stabbed to death,
Young person stabbed,
Young person stabbed to death.
Stabbed,
Stabbed,
Stabbed,
Fills the headlines,
Not seeming to go away;
Increasing
Rather than decreasing,
Respect for life
Continuing to disintegrate.
Wielding knives somehow popular,
Knife crime and violent crime
What authorities have tried
Clearly not working,
Leaving more families
With crying eyes.
Too many precious lives
Stolen away in their prime,
Unable to fulfill their potential,
Get their full quota of time;
Yet somehow our society
Has become desensitized,
Barely batting an eyelid
At the loss of a young life,
As if it’s somehow normalised.
Nothing about it is normal,
Such violence is sick and sad,
Leading to further trauma,
Making our streets war zones,
Bleak and bad;
Time for society to snap out of it,
Click your fingers and wake up,
What happens to these young lives
Effects every one of us;
These are our communities,
Our streets,
Our voices for the future;
The more it increases,
The more it intensifies,
The more it draws nearer;
Getting closer to home,
Closer to your son
Or closer to your brother,
Because one day
It could be you looking up
Seeing your loved one in a newspaper.
