Droplets collect in a half full jar

on the wet cold floor.

Little fingers play with the water,

small hands gleefully slapping the floor

as the young mother lost in dream,

sits half naked in a broken plastic chair

fingers running through the toddler’s hair.

A monotonous beat of the drops

plays a dull song in the near empty room,

deep in the belly of a slum.

A young, bearded man snores gently

lying in a stupor, carelessly splayed bones

hanging off the narrow bed naked.

The young woman feels his seed

seeping inside her, as if a reminder

of the slippery hopelessness of life

in these dark corridors of her birth.

 

This constant suffocation of breath,

as she lights her charcoal burner

to make another meal of ugali

and he slumps in bed after sex;

a fumbling of ill-fitting skirts

as he rides her to his growling end.

She remembers days past,

when hope blossomed in her

— the feel of words stuck in her mind

is her only refuge amongst the refuse

scattered in her path to the community clinic

in a rush to find birth control pills.

Words she wishes would find a voice,

and spill from her silenced lips

to tell the tale of a girl caught in a web

snared in a lie within a trap

— fifteen minutes that lost her a lifetime.

The seed that destroyed a dream.

She could hate her small child,

but all she feels is depth of pity

for a young mind in a prison of circumstances

seeking a path past the tragedy of birth.