Little Faces

Content Warning: This poem might be triggering for people with (unresolved) childhood trauma. Please approach this poem with intense care for yourself if you've lost a parent, faced violence in your childhood or have been witness of violence/war. You don't need to read this poem if you don't want to. 

‘Little Faces'

Little faces with innocent frowns

what was their mistake?

They lost the parent they could've loved

when the other tore their souls apart.

They lived a life with a bomb ticking

next to their soiled pants

not knowing when it might explode.

Little faces with innocent frowns

what was their mistake?

They deserved love, kindness and giggles

but all they saw was hate, pain and brutality.

They slept with a knife twisting slowly

in each of their parent's body.

What sorrow feels like,

ask them and they'll know.

What losing your childhood

in the hands of violence feels like,

ask them and they'll know.

Grown ups with shattered egos,

play with angels from the heaven.

But when these bruised angels grow up,

they'll not know how to forgive an unforgivable sin,

they'll not know how to put their pieces back to place,

and they'll not know how to dream ever again.

Seen their homes bombarded,

seen all of their belongings washed away in the flood,

slept nights without food on the table,

spent nights hiding inside the closet.

Watched their mother crying

when their father finally leaves to work,

known their father lying

when their mother returns to her kitchen.

Never went to school,

never met a friend,

born in a different caste

now can't be fit to live a life they wanted.

Little faces with innocent frowns

what was their mistake all this while?

-The Loquacious Writes

Use of certain elements in the poem that might need explanations for a better understanding of the poem: 

1. In the lines- "They lived a life with a bomb ticking

next to their soiled pants

not knowing when it might explode." 

Bomb Ticking- is basically a metaphor for something uncertain. It can be a war like situation that's currently happening in Afghanistan or it might also be related to a parent who's temper is very unpredictable. Since the inital lines in the same verse talks about the parental dynamics, these lines can also be related to the same parental dynamics but it does not necessarily mean that. 

Soiled Pants: The baby is afraid and hence, has soiled their pants. This is a metaphor for the state of fear that the child is constantly in and this is why the bomb is right next to their soiled pants. 

2. The Lines "Grown ups with shattered egos......how to dream ever again."

This verse talks very directly about how people who grow up with shattered egos and self esteem end up playing with the angels from heaven (their own children). But this verse also talks about how when these children who had to deal with so much trauma since a young age grow up and have now lost the sight of themselves. However, they do not become the same 'grown ups with shattered egos' instead they grow up in real sense and now they want to forgive the people who have hurt them at their young age, but they just don't know how to 'forgive an unforgivable sin.'

This poem talks about everything. War, violence, poverty, caste discrimination, family disputes, relationships, pain, hurt and sorrow. 'Little Faces' is the poem I am utterly proud of.