MORE…

They say Oliver twist asked for more because he was greedy,

But perhaps it wasn’t greed. Perhaps it was a knowing, a hunger not for food but for justice, for dignity,

For the right to be more than just a shadow in a world that had forgotten its humanity.

____

He stood there, small in body but vast in spirit, holding his empty bowl like a mirror,

Reflecting their wealth, their excess, their indifference.

They sat high, above him, above all of us,

With plates overflowing, dripping the fat of their abundance,

While we, the ones who labored beneath, were left with scraps.

____

But Oliver knew, we knew, that more was not just for them.

More was for all, for the ones without names,

the ones who serve in silence,

Who carry the weight of their luxury on their bent backs.

___

It wasn’t just bread or broth we were asking for,

It was the air to breathe, the space to be.

It was the right to stand tall without being crushed by their disdain,

To rise even when the world kept pushing us down.

____

He asked, not because his stomach growled,

But because his spirit roared.

What is the point of so many hands working, building,

If all we receive is the dust left behind?

They say they keep us alive, but at what cost?

We exist, yes, but do we live?

____

Is there something in us, deep in the marrow of our bones,

That they fear?

Something that makes them hoard and accumulate,

As if their very survival depends on our deprivation?

They gorge themselves on more than they need,

While we scrape by, taught to believe

That a little is enough.

____

But no.

The more they take, the more we know this truth:

We were not born to serve, to be kept in their shadows.

This “more” we seek is not for greed, not to swell our bellies until we burst.

No, it is for the many hands that have been empty for too long.

It is for the tired, the forgotten, the ones who have nothing but the hope of more.

____

Don’t settle, don’t shrink yourself into a corner of comfort.

Comfort is the trap, the illusion they sell us.

Seek more. Always. Even when it feels like enough, even when you think you have arrived.

More is not a destination; it is the road we walk,

A road that starts in hunger but ends in something greater,

A hunger for justice, for equality, for all of us to rise together.

_____

You move forward, but always, always look back—

Not to stay where it’s safe, but to remember those still left behind.

Because more is not just for you;

It is for us all.