Innocence Where Have You Gone 

Innocence where have you gone 

When did you leave 

Why did you start to disappear 

I remember in my younger years when I saw everything with eyes wide open 

You were my constant companion 

As you were to every child 

But now your presence seems to be a shadow of it’s former self 

We live in dark times, and your presence seems to almost have vanished 

Children lose their innocence earlier 

In a million different ways 

Drugs and alcohol being used by their parents 

Abuse of all kinds 

And the most recent invention of man to cause the loss of innocence is the internet 

Groomer, predators, and petabytes worth of data 

Loss of innocence little more than a wrong click away 

Doom and gloom, incels, terrorists, far right, and far left all waiting to dig the claws into the children 

Innocence why did you leave us  

Did we kill you through an overload of information  

Why did we make you leave 

I mourn the loss of the innocence of my youth 

When I still believed the world was good  

When I still believed in my fellow man 

Innocence how can we get you back in this crazy world 

Where innocence is ripped from the young in a whirlwind of pain, or shame all too often 

Innocence once lost can never be regained 

There is no magic words, there is no magic pill 

There is no literal mind bleach to scrub away the horrors 

There is only persistence and perseverance 

The horrors persist but so do I and so should you 

When innocence leaves, it brings forth knowledge 

With knowledge comes responsibility 

To either forewarn or protect such is the weight of the loss of innocence 

But life goes on even with the loss of innocence 

Huge shout out to Tim Groves for the suggestion of “Loss of Innocence”