Poverty Perspective

Life is different when you’re poor,

no “seconds” or even any “more,”

mending your own hand-me downs,

making your own musical sounds,

using what someone else threw out,

sleeping on the floor without a pout,

rationing potatoes and making bread

-sometimes out of pancake or cake mix,

saving water when you’re cooking with it

-for the next meal, it’s all that’s afforded;

eating ants with your cereal -free protein,

plus, eventually it becomes like routine,

even the going to sleep a little early

to ignore how much you’re still hungry,

dreams become your playground,

nature is your friend all-around

-offering shade on hot days,

and wind which blows many ways;

washing clothes in a bathtub, one at a time

-then, hanging them to dry, out on a line,

one pair of shoes, probably with holes

-layers of duct-tape “saving” the soles;

during the day, lights are forbidden,

A/C is a freezer breeze and light linen

-if you’re lucky.

That’s not even stepping into public:

social-standards like hitting a road-block,

somehow a burden or disgust to even see;

as if, by sight, others can be tainted by poverty.

Or worse, as if being poor makes you subhuman,

stupid, and too ignorant to have a valid opinion;

not even given a chance or the time to speak,

-someone would have to do more than leave,

throwing up metaphysical, projected walls,

“not me, I want nothing to do with your pitfalls!”

So, maybe I make more of an effort to look clean,

to seem more wealthy than I am, knowing me;

well, then I’m a fraud who must be taking advantage,

of someone or some system -as if that has any wisdom!?

Don’t you realize those who steal to get more,

aren’t really lacking, and not really poor?

Some of us work for it, have family and friends,

we’re all still people, even when poverty stricken;

with thoughts, emotions, and (maybe forgotten) goals

-inside whatever makes us poor, we all still have souls.

-M.E.