See his smile?
His little teeth?
His fingernails and eyes?
Although they claim he's happy,
You know it is all lies.

For deep within
You really know,
That hunger plagues his life,
He never has enough to eat,
His family is in strife.

They can't afford to care for him,
They can't afford a house,
But rather than complaining,
He's as quiet as a mouse.

That's because he hasn't learnt to speak,
Nor can he spell, nor write,
He's never been able to say his prayers,
Before he sleeps at night.

He works all day,
Without any pay,
To try to help them survive,
His mother, father and siblings,
Who are only just alive.

His father is dying in his bed,
His mother is anorexic,
His sisters have an eye disease
And his brothers are dyslexic.

Every morning before light,
The brave boy is gone,
He scourers the dump for food and bits,
For his dying family to live on.

He cleans the house
And makes the rice,
A bag a month they get,
And he keeps hoping
That his family won't die just yet.

For although this boy
Does all this work,
Do you seem to know?
As he sits atop a rubbish dump,
Off to work you go.

You drive a car,
To get there fast,
You sit at your desk and smile,
Then you complain about your feet,
Being still for all this while.

Have you noticed that this boy,
Does more work you'll ever do.
But I wonder which tries harder:
The starving boy or you?

So when you complain about your life,
While having coke and cake,
Think of this little boy
And the difference you could make.

If you only tried to understand,
Your life is not that bad,
Compared to his and his family,
It's the best anyone could have had.

See his smile?
His little teeth?
His fingernails and eyes?
Although they claim he's happy,
You know it is all lies.

And as you turn the telly on
You watch the news report,
And you think about your mobile phone
And the stereo you've just bought.

And as you're drifting off to sleep,
They show a photograph,
Of a boy who's smile and teeth and eyes,
Remind you of a laugh.

But although he looks happy,
You hear his tragic tale,
This morning while he was at the dump,
His mother's health did prevail.

She died at ten,
His dad at twelve,
And as he got home that day,
He found his brothers and sisters dead,
And all but sadness faded away.

He dug a hole,
Right in the ground,
And sadly put them in,
And as he covered them with soil,
His eyes became all dim.

His heart began to ache and ache,
His back began to break,
The pain of life and work at the dump,
It's toll was beginning to take.

The boy fell in pain,
Upon the soil,
The messy, unmarked grave,
And lying there, a tear ran from his little eye,
And his last breath he gave.

He lay there, dead, upon the ground,
But nobody even knew,
People came and people went,
Nothing did anyone do

Until finally, after days had past,
A girl was walking by,
And as she paused to gaze at him,
She didn't even know why.

She moved him over
And knelt down,
And scratched away at the soil,
Until she unearthed his family,
After days of heavy toil.

Her hands were bleeding,
Her skin was burnt,
Her back was aching in pain,
But carefully she put the little boy,
In the grave to have his family again.

And before she walked away that day,
She placed a little cross
Made of two sticks and a piece of string,
On the grave, surrounded by moss.

And every year she visits the grave,
With her she brings a rose,
And why she places it on the unmarked grave,
Only her heart will be the one who knows.