Need For A Resolution Poem by Onareen Ferdinand

'Money haven't! '
Screams my grammar-confident niece
Stooping to correct her, I'm
Slapped silent
By the similarity of a toddler's pink purse
And my own;
In their emptiness.

'Give! '
Rudely reminds me she's there
'I don't have…'
'No want you! '
And like a siren she's gone,
Doppler effect, pink purse and all.

I wish, like her,
I had screamed
And the world would have heard
Stubborn resolve
And made amends;
Instead of a
'No want you! ' -
An innocuous disownment
That matures with age,
To escape
Contemptuous lips.

Fingers grip my own purse;

Sole witness to potential flung out
To brave the rat race
Armed with meager qualifications
For prejudiced salaries,
Manicured to chase high street fashions,
Jimmy Choos, bubbly and whisky,
Evolving identities online and on CVs,
Half hearted attempts to live;
Dead to dreams
Stifled by strings
Of empty purses.

Dead, also,
To needs of self, while
Searching for respect
Searching for like minds
Inside twenty four hours
Of late night stupors
And paper filled desks.

Resurrected
Only to learn of loss:
Loss of identity, self worth, potential, health
Loss of memory and loss of work.
Purses rich only in the emptiness
Of a toddler's purse;
Filled with expired cards
To withdraw only insult
Shame and rejection.

Here she comes again;
My little niece.
Ah! Someone's been charitable-
She's elated.

She's the confident bundle
I never was.
Was that my drawback?
Giving my left cheek
When my right was struck?
But I can't go back now.

Tomorrow will come without warning.

Like her, I should be ready
To get what I want.
Every slap
Every fall,
Should become rungs of the ladder
To my dreams.

Then, emptiness will be buried
Under layers of prosperity.

Tomorrow comes,
And I resolve
To be elated.