Questions From A Child Soldier Advocate Poem by Ivan Brooks Sr

Just few months right before I became of age
The entire masses erupted in a profound rage
Thanks to rebel leader Dakpana Charles G.Taylor
Many many young and innocent Kids my very own age
Took hold of rusted machetes and AK-47s to engage
The propagandas of a brutal senseless revolution
Sadly today with no former and proper education
Many traumatized young men are perishing alone
Sleeping on crowded streets corners they call home
The very corners, grace of a city they once ruled
Why are they alone being judged and ridiculed?
Where are the bosses who ordered the war cargos
Yet today society's elites calls them useless Zogos
All of them were meticulously misled and brainwashed
Where are all the rebel leaders, one of them asked?
They took the loots and gave their kids education
Leaving them to rot and live in total destitution.

As kids some thought fun was shooting a gun
And making many old and young people to run
Many thought war was like a kind of video game
Then one day they realized it was not the same
By then the damages were already done, too late
Courtesy of the hard drugs they didn't calculate
Now they have to scramble for leftover bread
Living in shelters without real roofs overhead
Their lives have all become one real struggle
Living on handouts from their very own people
Oh lord I wish one of them had become an author
Just like my good childhood friend called Arthur
They would have gained great respects and fames
Or for themselves, made respectable great names
Names that the whole world would have learned
Their own bread and cash they would've earned
I wish one of them had become a civil engineer
But instead were made a leader to commandeer
Many brainwashed kids turned euphoric soldiers
Oh I wish they had turned up as bright scholars
Why didn't one of them even become a good lawyer
Or a university lecturer like Dr. Amos Sawyer?

Mr Charles Taylor, where is the promised future?
Madame President, Where is everything you promised?
For your sakes these young men became mere butchers
Today for them no rehab at all, only moral lectures.
The blood of the innocent lives have become dried
And for justice and redress the masses have cried
The pains from the past is impossible to be erased
All because the face of justice is yet to be faced
For now, all the very bad memories just won't go away
So for the victims and innocent souls, we will pray
Be it night or day, rain or shine I'll never hesitate
To question the warlords as a child soldier advocate.