"Walk this way, please"

As I walk into the REAL. LIFE. exhibit,
    I don't know what will be waiting for me.
I came in with friends to enjoy a good time,
    but then I read the brutal facts—
    facts about "Real Life."

I watch in silence as the film rolls and music plays.
Emotion grabs me by the throat.
I see people who are homeless, starving, and naked—
    while I have a bag of chips in my purse and complain 
        that my clothes are too old
        and I don't like where I live.
It starts to get inside of me.

“Walk this way, please.”

I turn the corner, and I’m in Louisiana.
    I see all the homes that are torn to shreds by Katrina.
A few more steps and I’m in Indonesia,
    with a 25-foot wave hovering above me and sand at my feet.
        I imagine what fear they must of had in their eyes.
        Real life.

“Walk this way, please.”

A few more steps and I’m in Uganda, where I’m faced with the fact
    that a child dies every 3.6 seconds.
        An innocent child.
I step into a hut where six people live.
    I can't even stand up, and it’s crowded with three people in it.
        And I complain that my four-bedroom, two-bath home 
            is too small.
I learn that innocent children are forced into war,
    that they are given drugs to perform,
    that people have to leave their homes and may die 
        just to get away from the violence in the country.

“Walk this way, please.”

I walk through an African hut, and I’m in a world lost with no cure.
    Every day 2,000 infants are infected with HIV.
    This one disaster has killed 30 million people.
        Real life.

I walk through a garbage dump and smell the filth 
    that people are forced to live in.
    I see the little kids playing in a heap of garbage
        they call their backyard.

“Walk this way, please.”

I step into a world where orphans rock,
    four children to a bed, sheets soaked in urine.
All crying out,
    not for food
    but for love.

I step into a hospital in Moldova,
    where burned children come for help.
    They lie there on the window screen,
        oozing,
        crying out in pain.

Then I’m faced with a choice.
    A choice to act.
    A choice to give.
    A choice to pray.
    A choice to volunteer.

Just toss a pebble in the pond.
    Start the ripple.

But that is easier said than done.
    What will people think when I pick up that stone?
        Will they ridicule my compassion?
        Or be moved by my heart?

Now it's time to go back to my life.
But can I?
Can I live the same way after seeing the other side?

Can I really call the life I live “Real Life”?

Kaylee Stocker
Age 17
Westview High School
The Aftermath, Advanced Creative Writing