It’s a day
Without the sun
Slippery wet
Smells mould
My chest
Screams fear
Of another attack
The soup kitchen
Is five blocks away
I rather battle
Stomach acid
Than the cold
My baby’s looking at me
Wide eyed and whining
It sucks
To be poor
Sick
And a dog owner
I read your application
Of a scholarship
You said
The scholarship
Would help you
Get new stationery
You said
You long to have
New pencils
I remember
In grade school
I wrapped paper
Around pencil stubs
To make them last longer
That’s four decades ago
In China
Back then
A third world country
We are in 2023
You are in Australia
Facing the same poverty
I can’t help
But cry
He stopped buying bread and milk from the service station up the road.
He couldn’t afford the price, tagged for the convenience.
He started to walk to the supermarket to shop.
Three months later, his shoes fell apart.
He stopped going out all together.
Three weeks later,
he was found dead by his neighbour’s dog
on his own front porch
at the age of 95.
She walked along the strip in front of her apartment
back and forth, back and forth slowly
with a tender back
It’s worth it
and all she could manage
ten minutes in the sun
in the middle of Winter
There was no work to go to
no appointment to attend
no fund to go out
Everything in life at that point
was out of her control
She had never learned to be doing nothing
up until that Winter
It was a humbling experience indeed
There was no help from anyone
when everyone else was experiencing more or less the same thing:
jobless and soon to be homeless
Now she is sitting in the garden of a women’s refugee
ten minutes in the sun
in the beginning of Summer
and she manages a few thanksgiving and prayer
She happily handed all control to the Boss upstairs
after she realised through all that
she was kept warm, well fed and the sun has been shining
You boarded the train
With a one way ticket
Thinking that you were going somewhere
Well, well
The journey ended, didn’t it
Soon you came back to square one
Ain’t got nothing to show off
Not a penny in your holed pocket
Loyalty didn’t count for shit in your cv
Older and wiser is a big fat lie
You know why
they built a ladder to heaven
To make sure that
only God would take you
Humans are too fucking selfish
to care about a man
living under the proverty line
I bought a Kmart t-shirt
at sales time
hung out with a friend overnight
She offered me her clothes dryer
something fancy that I don’t own
I was grateful and excited
My t-shirt came out unwearable
Shrinkage was something
I didn’t anticipate
after such a great night
That reminded me of poverty
Flicker of Thoughts 