Too long have we suffered tyrannies of
powerful people,
Engaged with them in their enterprise of human
deceit,
Rarely have we asked this life to be indexed,
better organised,
We fell in love, we forgot, we ignored what
is important to us.
We believed in love but love never gave us
a second chance,
One chance too many, life seemed to whisper
in our ear,
We saw our true love disappear in train
rides, and crowded airports,
We didn’t read their histories, or, what
happened to them next.
We stared at the things we don’t have in store
windows,
We postponed the things we wanted to the nearest
future,
We didn’t mind the profanities, the
insults, written in restrooms,
We forced our habits around hardwork to
rest our heads in sleep.
We sleepwalked days chasing corporate targets,
but forgot our own,
We lost what we earned in the sweep of
cards, a turn of wheel,
We wept our sorrows in doctors’ clinics and
intensive units,
When the needle hurt us, we shook up, and
screamed in pain.
Like mad we clung to seats in office
cubicles and conference rooms,
We said tomorrow will be ours, but tomorrow
never arrived,
We dreamed our dreams in theatres and
pleasure houses,
We were full of promise, truth be told,
those promises never came.
Our ill-health took us by surprise; we
never knew we could be sick,
We realised doctors can test and diagnose
but never heal,
We wept bitter tears when our hearts were clogged
by unhappiness,
We wanted a quick death, but it lingered
from drugs to emergency, back to emergency.
