I will change Education

For the girls who can't.

Yet remain resolute

Because they want to.

 

You look into her eyes

And wonder why she was brought here

So innocent a child

Crying bloody tears

 

It took a minute for me to see the blood wasn't coming from her eyes,

They'd lost its glow

But from a hole in her forehead

That wasn't there a minute ago

 

I heard a scream filled with terror

Not a sign she was alive, it didn't come from her

 

How was I supposed to tell her mother she would never return from school?
That her last breath was in my arms

Her environment was too cruel?

 

Gunfire plagued the daylight time
Our ears were used to it
Threats flew from the tongues of angry men
Still, our ears were used to it.

 

They threatened us,

instilled fear into our hearts

so the girls wouldn't come back to school

and so they could tear us apart

 

Still I gave these children power

Education, a sense of mind

they learned and they smiled

so worthy to learn and find.

 

My ears should never have gotten used to it

it made me forget the danger

the hatred that filled this culture

and filled these men with anger

 

Soon it got too much

The classroom too exposed

That I had the children draw their happiness on paper

Just to tape it over the walls and bulletholes

 

Yet I'd rather hear their cries

Than a silence of the night
I want a sign that they're alive
knowing I will help them fight

 

Fight for their minds

For the strength of their hearts

Because their culture says they can't 

Because they want them in the dark

 

Their minds of innocence hold such wonder to me

Their strength in the war around them stands so prominently

 

They hold their heads high

Knowing others are afraid of what she knows

Walking with pride

Because her uniform is her nicest clothes

 

THey take it out on me

But this I'd rather

Than to take it out on them
For I wouldn't even fathom

 

Mothers live in fear

Fathers kill their own

the girls keep me a secret

because they feel all alone

 

I have to be strong for her

And her brother who died for love

Because he helped his sister learn

Because of what Education does

 

They come after me

So I can't keep them here

No matter how bloody their own homes

Or how ravishing her tears

 

And when I die there will be no honor to my name
My students must forget they know me
and I will die in shame

 

The children must learn

Why won't they be allowed?
Because nothing is done for equality 

and nothing anyone is doing now

 

My ears have gotten used to it

but my heart never will

for if my own breaks too

Then so may the childrens' wills