the lives you won’t lead

when you were ten, summer came to an end
when you stood here, at this fork on the road
waving bye; your friends back to classes,
you to the fields, sharing the family’s workload.

now you’re fifteen, still working away,
old friends build dreams in places you’ve served:
in entrance halls to schools, prestigious,
or museums great painters aspire,
in the handshakes paving endless paths,
between walls built by your calloused hands, summer last.

can you see – the lives you won’t lead?
behind others’ beliefs of what you can’t reach.
i know not the troubles you face
but it is this gap that pains me, every day.