Poverty Is A White Prison Poem by Lalithashree Ganesh

Poverty is a white prison,
With red floors
Strewn with bones
and dry dust.

No stomach
to swallow the penniless days,
No pity
If you lay in a pit
Only tears,
insipid tears
that quench no thirst.

Where's the burning candle?
Did it melt away,
before time?
Leaving no sight of tomorrow
or today.

Where are you
and where am I?
We stand,
Divided
by a pretty banknote
I can never reach.

And still, I wait.

I wait.
For the white walls to tear down
as I wash them in blood
and let them drain
away -
from thought
from reality
from existing.

I wait.

I wait.
I look.
Doubtfully, I drink.
Barely breathing -
transparent, unseen, unwanted,
as I reach out
for the dying candle.

Will there be light again?
I ask