All Of Us Poem by Ali Rahimi

all of us have stories to tell,
have seen good times and bad times,
have gone through thick and thin, together,
ups and downs, twists and turns,
all of us have felt the caring parental touch,
tender healing words of our friends,
have felt the ecstasy of success and satisfaction,
but the flip side of the life coin:
the pain of going to school on Mondays,
devastating anxiety of exam nights,
cramming the whole book into our brains,
and vomiting them on paper the day after,
cheating, wild guessing, or malingering,
under the piercing harsh eyes of teachers and proctors,
all of us have been the merciless target of,
tough teachers’ brutal jokes and sarcasm,
morality police nasty looks, intrusions, control,
harassment, questions and what not,
have sad memories of war, bloodshed and battlefields,
our best friends victims of politicians’ greed and vengeance,
all of us have been betrayed,
by envious colleagues, hypocrites seeking for,
more share of the lucrative pie,
have been cuckolds, our ungrateful shallow beloveds,
dumping us for lustful potent fools,
yes darling,
size and stamina not your brain and character count,
money, lies, empty promises and imbecility,
are the key to peoples’ hearts,
all of us have seen the sad imploring eyes,
of hungry kids in slums, with wounded knees,
boney bodies, pale looks, skeletal Africans,
near the luxurious palaces of the affluent bunch,
innocent women and kids slaughtered by mindless leaders,
pretty women selling their bodies,
to make their family survive,
the onus is on us, the onus is on us,
all of us…..