Tears of the Future

Called the Future, They dream; they hope: they grow. Yet when they do wrong, you strike You hit and kick. Shouting and insulting You treat them like nothing, Worse than the dirt beneath your shoes. As they grow up you don't change, Your beatings get worse. What did they do to deserve this? Did they commit a crime, did they sin? Are you beating them to make yourself feel better; bigger; in control? Or are you doing it because it's all you know, Because your parents did the same? Does the child before quivering and whimpering, Bleeding and bruised, look like you? Does this remind you of your own pain? Does this reflection of you make, you angry and hate yourself? You strike out again as the rage builds, The rage you feel at your own weakness, The faults in your soul. So you lash out at the thing that made you feel this way. Do their tears show you your crimes, your wrongs? No they only make worse. This child's pain is your drug, Your heroin, your booze, your crack You get off on the pain you cause. The only crime they committed is existing. But that's enough, at least in your mind, to hit and hurt, to wound and scar. Yet what of the future Does the child before you Grow up and change to be different than you Or do they follow in your foot steps of pain and tears?