One, Two, four, Five, Seven,
yes Seven
Yes poverty has Seven Stages
Absence, it all began with an absence
a father who can not afford a chair
an empty cupboard
covered in dust and fragile threads of web,
whispering "I'm hungry too"
a mother with breasts,
dried up from hunger,
dividing a single piece of bread
with shaking hands,
swallowing nothing but her own hunger
Then born another Stage
name? wanting
a want of shoes with no holes
a pair of socks,
a dress with no smell of a stranger kid,
a chirping voice of TV
a winter without shrinking body
a childhood without a glance
that last one second but stays lifetime
and then another Stage came
name? waiting
waiting has been written into their destinies
They wait for rain,
for work,
for arrival,
for help that never came,
They witness nights turning into mornings,
mornings into nights,
nights mornings, mornings nights
then another Stage grows, shrinking
soon, soon their little dreams learn to calculate,
learn to shrink
starts to understand the sky is too expensive,
so they look for a window,
the window is expensive too
so they breathe
from the holes in the hollow walls,
walls eaten by hunger
and then came silence
their lips sealed with a thread of silence,
they stop asking
their palms are no longer begging bowls
no, no they do not own anything but bowls,
bowls start accusing them
so they cut their hands,
eat their tongues,
tied the rope then kick the stool and mute their throats,
until hunger forgets how to breathe
then erasure appears
poverty start erasing their names,
turning them into numbers,
erasing gravestones, if they could afford
then inheritance came
becomes the fate of a child
a child born into inheritance of poverty
poverty write its name on their fingerprints
a borrowed water from neighbors
kiss the skin of a child
a cold wind from same hollow walls wrap arms around
the same whisper of leaking roof
become the first sound
beside the pillow someone waits
wait to eat the dreams
name, birth, death, gravestone, voice
wait to lick the body,
to give disease
to give labor
wait to write "waiting" on their eyes
struggle on their backs
wait to whisper "dreams are expensive"
"eat stomachs flour is expensive"
"drink tears water is expensive"
"die quietly funerals are expensive"
wait to feed them the same sweet line
"The winner takes it all"
And? and a winner did take it all.
