Slum life

A civilian barrack

Gigantic building

Tiny rooms

Tiny dreams

A room for the very poor

Room and Parlor for the poor

Children like sardine

A bed, a chair, some mats

Stoves in the passage

Everybody's bathroom

Everybody's kitchen

We know there's better

This is our best

To live here and not be broken

Is impossible

Father's grunting, mother's moaning

Children pretending

We can hear nothing

Turn off the light, Turn off the light

Hands roaming over bodies

Fingers exploring the forbidden

Mouths shut tight in pain

We know there's better

But this...

The bigger they grow

The smaller the space

The narrower the room

The less the self

Who touched my bum bum?

Who wouldn't?

Hands and legs clustered together

Nothing is sacred, nothing is private

It was here at 8

She became a woman

She had known what it was about

This is their best

What was his name?

She really can't remember

Seasons brought new leerers

Time birthed new gropers

What she knew as a teenager

Many women would be scared to learn

The worst thing about poverty

You are afraid to dream

Dreams makes you hope

Hope births disappointments

She became a dream leech

Latching onto big dreamers

The light of their dream, she thought

Could lead her out of the slimy pit

But dreamers can also be takers

The whisper of dreams sometimes lead to a kiss

A kiss to a romp

Escape into the dream

Borrowing from tomorrow

The leech used

The dreamer moves on

She knows there is better

But this is her best

In her early 20s

She met the ultimate dreamer

Handsome smooth talker with a ticket out of hell

A diploma!

He will get a big job, live a big life

She latched onto him

Finally, Her ticket to dream

She works as a salesgirl

Dresses like Beyonce

All to attract the ticket

All to buy herself the man

He treated her like a queen

Didn't ''chance'' her into her pants

He took her out, talked to her like she mattered

She fell in love

She dared dreaming again

Tomorrow is hers!

She got pregnant

'You have to abort it' he says

'But why? I want to keep our baby, I love you'

He: Love me? So you think I will marry you? Oh no. This has nothing to do with you, but your mentality is bred of poverty that is all you know, I cannot marry you!

She almost died!

She took some pills, bled for many days

She: 'I have done it'

He: Good for you

She: Can you teach me how not to think poverty?

He: I will try

She truly didn't want to lose him

Four months later, she started showing

He went berserk

I thought you said you have done it!

'I have!'

He: How can you be so dumb? You see what I mean? You are gullible, non-literate, non-thinking, sheepish and easy to fool. Did you not feel in your own body that something was wrong?

He cut her to pieces with his words

She had an abortion that evening

Anything to please him

The next day he told her it was over

'She was naive, unenlightened and local.

He was sorry'

Pain, guilt and shame plagued her

This must end

Weeks later, while considering the best way to kill herself

She came across a thread on twitter

She reached out

Jesus saved her

Hallelujah!

Her horizon suddenly brightened

She lived in a squalor, within a vision

She enrolled for GCE, learnt clobbering

She gained admission, made shoes in school

She graduated, became a dream, married a dream

She found herself moving forward and upward

Her family saw the light too

Many who shared the slum with her wondered how she did it

'A certain illumination comes with Knowledge,

The sun started rising every day from within her'

Christ did that, He made her

The poverty within died

She became a blessing to the world

Now she runs an NGO

Saving others