Poverty by Elizabeth Opiyo

Amanda told me that her lips know the taste of poverty,
Like Nelson Mandela knew the way to liberty,
And that’s why she believes in charity.

But I told her that,
You only know what poverty tastes like,
If your mama, sacrificed the only bread she had,
So you could have something to eat.
While she slept on an empty stomach.

If you were washing clothes without soap,
When your friends were watching soap operas,
And the only view you could afford, was the vision of owning a television.
You watched your Koroboi go off,
And with incomplete homework you whined,

for the teacher would never understand.

I told her,
That you know what poverty tastes like,
If your old soul still remembers the cold sleepless nights,
On an empty stomach on the streets.
Those days that you tried tirelessly to make peace with your stomach,
But even the street trash cans that seemed to care have nothing to offer.

In the middle of the night,
Your stomach is quaking as if the bowels are at war

As if the colons are fighting to colonize the small intestines.
Making you realize that it’s not only the earth that quakes.

On a cloudy night,
Your friends pay you a surprise visit,
And your only prayer is that a rainbow appears on the sky.
Because every corner of your house is generous to the rains.

The curtain dividing your single room into two is secretive.

It does not reveal to your friends that there is no bed on the other end,
Until the rains start heavily.

Your friends have to spend the night here.
The same curtain that covers the shame of the day,
Is the blanket that keeps you warm during the night.
No option left but to reveal the secret,
Curtains down for a blanket.

The following morning,
You look up to the skies,
But today, today the clouds appear too dark for your weak eyes.
Inside of you, the voice urging you to give up your hopes to the darkest clouds,
Is louder than the one telling you to hold on to your visions.

Your best friend was shot dead on the head while he was trying to make a living,
And it breaks you down, it will never fade away even if you ever left the Ghetto.
He left a gap you don’t know how to fix.
He had dropped out from Primary six.
The only reason you still hold on to education.
Hoping that the skies will appear brighter someday.

After revealing the secret,
You discover that life on the other side of the curtain was so harsh.
Until you moved beyond the dark curtains and revealed it all.
The day you invited reality to help you build a life without curtains,
You happily thanked your past for coming first.

*koroboi –paraffin lantern