Butchered in the Name of Peace

I walked on the street proud of this city.
This city, a symbol of peace and stability,
but in the corners of the city's streets,
young boys die everyday.
They were stabbed, they were shot.
Left in the streets to die or bleed to death.
It's the usual case; all those young boys,
they were vulgar or pretty thieves,
or members of gangs that roamed the strets.
I tried not to care, I tried not to see.
I tried to thi nk they were useless anyway.
Then I saw a mother holding her dead son,
in front of her, a boy, killed with a gun.
"Why did you do this to my son?"
"Why didn't you give him a second chance?"
Yes, his life had gone astray.
But does it take away his rights and dignity?
And I heard from beyond the grave those boys cry.
"Is it because we're poor, that's why due process for us,
does not apply?"
And though I tried not to care, tried not to see.
Those words made me care for them anyway,
I realize those boys belong to the poorest in this
society,
they were pushed in the perphery.
Some of them were pushed to violence by
poverty,
they commited mistakes but they have rights
and dignity.
Even for the sake of curbing criminality,
nobody has the right to take those boys lives
away.
In the eyes of some people they may be a nuisance,
but those boys are still young and they deserve
a second chance.
Why are they butchered in the name of peace?
is killing them the only way to keep the city safe?
And now I can't help but care, I can't help but see,
the pathetic situation of this society.
It's such a shame,
but it was the authorities' failure to adress this
problem.
The people lost their trust in this thing called
"justice system."
It was my, your, our passivity and silent tolerance,
that pulled the trigger in that gun.
Those were the reasons too, why those boys were gone.

And now, I walked on the streets feeling ashamed
of this city...