Boys On The Street Poem by Okoemu Okoemu Okoemu

We are the brutes
The rogues on street
Who has no future
We are useless as you have said
We are bad, badder and baddest in town
We are cruel and heartless
And you say we are fools
We are illiterate children
Because we have no school education,
We are the thieves
And robbers and burglars
We are the hoodlums
We are the rapists
Bad as we are, no one care about us
We are bad that's what matter,
Why are we who we are?
You don't know and you don't care
We are vagabonds
Vandalizers and beasts of no training.
We are proud of who we are, very proud to be irresponsible
Do you know how we survive?
As you are struggling for survival
So we are, and this is our way.
We are the children of that old soldier who defended this country and his reward was retrenchment,
We are the boys who have been denied everything,
We are the children of that woman who had no opportunity to become the woman of her dream as your mother is now,
We are the children who never had uncles nor aunties to visit
We were the children who had no holidays
We are the boys in the street
Who have become adults since we were three years old,
The brothers to the sisters, that lack opportunity.
We are the negative ones.
Our eyes are dried and we cry no more
Not even when God die
Our hearts has long become stones
We fear nothing for we have seen everything
The only thing left is death
And by any means, we are not afraid.

-Okoemu Okoemu Okoemu, the Enlightened Rabbi