For a boy who went to the beach and never came home

He ran where the wind met the sea,
barefoot dreams where the gulls flew free—
sixteen summers held in his hands,
cut short on Ayrshire’s golden sands.

A footballer’s heart, fierce and bright,
he lit the pitch with laughter and fight.
Busby’s pride, a brother's guide,
a grandson's echo, a father's stride.

But one moment broke the tide.
One blade, one act, one shattered sky.
What words can make the silence speak
of blood spilled young on Irvine Beach?

A town now grieves in hushed lament,
a school wears sorrow like cement.
His desk, his voice, his empty place,
the ghost of kindness in every face.

And his father writes through trembling hand:
My main man, you’ll always stand
in every breath, in every dream,
in places you were yet to be.

Scotland weeps with East Kilbride.
A wound too deep. A soul denied.
We say his name. We rage, we cry:
Kayden Moy—too young to die.

(For Amen Teklay, Kayden Moy, and every child lost too soon)


In just two months, two lives were lost,
To blades that cut through more than frost.
Amen, just fifteen, fell in March—
On Glasgow’s street beneath the arch.

No warning bell, no time to run,
His story ended, barely begun.
Three boys arrested, young as him—
Innocence drowned, futures grim.

Ten weeks on, the pain still raw,
Kayden found on Irvine’s shore.
Sixteen years, a beach, a knife—
Another boy stripped of his life.

Between these deaths, the toll runs high—
Eleven more hurt under Scotland’s sky.
Sixteen teens cuffed, charged, or tried,
While parents ask, Why has hope died?

A 13-year-old at Asda’s door,
A blade in hand, still wanting more.
Two twelve-year-olds in Lenzie fight,
Left another boy bleeding in night.

Stonehaven shook on March fifteen—
An 18-year-old stabbed on the green.
Eight days after, a child of eleven
Caught with a blade at a funfair heaven.

Kinghorn Beach—thirty in a mob,
Four boys battered, blood-soaked, robbed.
Portobello echoed with sirens' sound—
Three teens stabbed, dropped to the ground.

In Aberdeen, a girl of twelve
Cut by another—what dark spell
Turns children into sharpened rage,
And steel the ink on every page?

A seven-year-old, knife in class—
What lessons did we let him pass?
Three schools, three knives, in children’s hands—
Where did we lose the line we planned?

Two names carved into fresh-dug graves,
While headlines scroll like crashing waves.
Amen. Kayden. Just the start—
A nation tearing at its heart.

This isn’t distant, isn’t past—
These weeks have sliced through us so fast.
How many more must we allow
To fall beneath what we allow?

What justice sleeps while young blood spills?
What silence keeps us standing still?
If two months wrought this ****** toll,
We’ve lost control. We’ve lost control

The heather burns with purple fire,
A land that dreams, a land that’s dire.
Through every glen, a cry is cast;
“We are a nation – free at last!”

No longer ruled by distant hand,
We claim our voice; we stake our stand.
From Bannockburn to present day’
The will for freedom finds its way.

The pound may shake, the oil may dry,
But still our hope will not deny.
For richer far than vaults of gold
Are rights no outsider should hold.

A parliament, yet not the crown,
Still shackled while we lift the town.
Our children ask in modern tongue:
“Why must our fate be England ‘s song”

With Europe’s hand, with island grace,
We take our place, we find our space.
A Scottish dawn, fierce, unafraid,
In truth and trust, our future’s made.