Born Condemned

When you fast as we do, the day goes slow

While we sink deeper into endless lows.

Fasting with no breakfasts, nothing to break the fast,

We starve until the hunger gets tired and goes past.

Here, we leap, yet never stop to look.

We can't take your advice; we never read your book.

There is no pause for reason, no room for tact,  

Just hope beating us down until our will cracks. 

Welcome to my home, my life, my ever-enduring trenches, 

Where the sweat of painful hard work and tears drench our blankets.

Kids and folks at this end of nothing live without hope.

Nobody prays for us; we are not in the words of the Pope.

You see us, we are the vandals who loot your malls and stores.

You see us, the children who could never walk through your corporate doors.

You see us, the criminals you condemn to death.

You see us; you could see our fate from birth.

We live life with no thoughts of living in our minds.

There is no sophistication or purpose for those of my kind. 

Each day, we live from swollen, callused hands to dry, ulcered mouths.

We live life; we don't try to make each hopeless day count.

But we ask not for favours; we ask not for mercies.

We simply ask you to not judge when you see us lost at sea.

We ask not for pounds and pennies to build a better life,

There's not much to save one or two of us from a condemnation so rife.

Do not judge a poor boy who had no say in what life brought.

Be grateful you have goals, for some live with naught sought.

Do not cast stones on broken windows already stained by hopelessness.

If you won't pull a poor man's son from the sands, at least cut not his harness.

Abdulrahmon Quareeb