A Beauty Pageant Response

"If there is one thing you could do to change the world, what would it be?"

The timeless and tired question

Of what one might do if they had this impossible ability,

To change the world.

And the timeless and tired runner-up response occurs to me;

"I would solve world hunger,"

I respond, on the stage in my mind,

Thinking both of the hole in my stomach

From trying to stretch a meager dollar

To expand a mind

And of the world I am doing this for,

Because maybe I could

"Change the world."

But "what keeps a man alive?"

An obscure anthem of our times,

Proving that old dead Maslow's theory,

"Food is the first thing morals follow on."

In a world of plenty  and waste,

Of garbage heaps and food being thrown away at close,

To think that I am "fortunate" 

Repulses me.

In my mind, I am back on the stage,

And I nod, and I smile, and I know.

Thinking of horrific images

And of the stiffled potential

Of those who cannot ascend beyond their stations

With thoughts of only how to reach the basic necessities,

Incapable of doing more,

Only of dreaming of doing, 

I say to the impartial, apathetic judge,

Who cares not of my dreams or struggles,

The prescribed line;

"I'd end world hunger."