To the Youth

More about To the Youth

You are told again and again,
“You are the future.”
And that is true.
But it is not the whole truth.

You are powerful now.
Not because of what you will become,
but because when you act today,
you carry a weight adults cannot ignore.

When you stand in moral clarity,
when you ask the simple question:
“Why must children go hungry?”
there is no answer.
No speech, no policy, no debate
can make that suffering right.

Your voice forces us —
not to argue,
not to defend our pride —
but to confront our shame.

This is your power:
your honesty disarms us.
Your courage unmasks us.
Your questions open the silence
we cannot explain away.

And yet, as you grow,
many will tell you to ignore your heart.
They will say:
“There are more important things —
study harder, grow older, learn skills.”
Yes, learn. Yes, practice.
But do not mistake skill for wisdom.

The greatest skill you can carry
is to keep your curiosity,
your tenderness,
your respect for sisters and brothers everywhere.

For those who have lost these things
will invite you to lose them too.
That is how people grow cold.
They forget what it means to be a child,
to hold hope upon the future.
They begin to fear death,
and because of this
they become easily controlled
by the suggestion of harm.

But you must remember:
the greatest harm of all
is when we refuse to love another’s family
as if it were our own.

Do not wait to be older to act.
Do not wait to be told you matter.
You matter most when you speak the truth
that everyone knows,
but few dare to say aloud.

You are not only tomorrow’s hope.
You are today’s conscience.
And when you rise,
the world will have to listen.

Aaron Baker
ChatGPT