I Cry

by Kimberly C. Jones©

I cry.
Not quietly.
Not politely.
I cry where it echoes.
I cry for the children
who may never learn how to say
peace
without tasting war on their tongues.

We live in a time
where some fight harder for a heartbeat
that has yet to breathe
than for a child
already starving—
for love,
for food,
for shelter,
for the simple right to survive.

They say love is unconditional—
say it
like a slogan,
like a shield,
like it costs them nothing.

Meanwhile,
innocent souls learn silence early.
Learn hunger.
Learn how to make themselves small
so the world doesn’t trip over them.

So I ask—
how do we protect them?
How do we keep them
from being swallowed whole
by a world that forgets too fast.

We show up.
Not when it’s trending.
Not when it’s comfortable.
We show up when it’s messy.
When it’s loud.
When it demands more than prayers.

We listen
even when their voices crack.
Even when they don’t have the words yet.

We feed them.
We shelter them.
We hold them long enough
for hope to stick.

We teach them—
you matter
before the world teaches them
you don’t.

And if the world tries to lose them,
we don’t let go.
We become witnesses.
We become walls against the wind.
We become the love
we keep claiming to believe in.

Because protection
isn’t a feeling—
it’s not a prayer whispered and forgotten.
It’s hands.
It’s time.
It’s staying,
even when the world turns away.

I will keep crying,
keep speaking,
keep standing
until every child knows
they were never invisible

And if the world tries to erase them,
we get louder.
If it tries to swallow them,
we stand in its throat.

I will keep crying—
not because I am weak,
but because silence has cost too many lives.

I will keep speaking their names
into spaces that never planned to listen.

Until love isn’t conditional.
Until care isn’t selective.
Until no child has to wonder
if they mattered enough to be saved.

I will keep standing
until the world learns this truth:
No child
was ever meant
to survive alone.

I will keep believing I can make a difference—
because somewhere tonight,
a child is asking the same question I am:
Does anyone care?

And until the answer is yes—
always yes—
I refuse
to be quiet.

So I cry—until the world answers.