Amanda told me that her lips know the taste of poverty,
Like Nelson Mandela knew the way to liberty,
And that’s why she gives everything to charity.

But I told her that,
You can only know what poverty tastes like,
If your mama, ever sacrificed the only ugali she’d earned,
So you could have something to eat.
While she slept on an empty stomach.

If you were washing your clothes without soap,
When your friends were watching soap operas,
And the only view you could afford was the vision of owning a television.
You watched your Koroboi go off,
And with incomplete homework you had to fall off.

I told her,
That you only know what poverty tastes like,
If your old soul still remembers the cold sleepless nights,
On an empty stomach on the streets.
Those days that you tried tirelessly to make peace with your stomach,
But even the city bins that seemed to care had nothing to offer.

In the wake of night,
Your stomach was quaking as if the bowels were at war and the colons living inside fighting to colonise the small intestines.
Making you realise that it’s not only the earth that quakes.

On a cloudy night,
Your friends pay you a surprise visit,
And your only prayer is that the rainbow appears on the sky.
Every corner of your house won’t stop letting the rains in.

The curtain dividing your single room into two is secretive and never reveals to your friends that there is no bed on the other end,
Until the rains start heavily.
Your friends have to spend the night here.
The same curtain that covers the shame of the day,
Is the blanket that keeps you warm during the night.
No option left but to reveal the secret,
Curtains down for a blanket.

The following morning,
You look up to the skies,
But today, today the clouds appear too dark for your weak eyes.
Inside of you, the voice urging you to give up your hopes to the darkest clouds,
Is louder than the one telling you to hold on to your visions.

Your best friend was shot dead on the head while he was trying to make a living,
And it breaks you down, it will never fade away as long as you’re living.
He left a gap you don’t know how to fix.
He had dropped out from Primary six.
The only reason you still hold on to education.
Hoping that the skies will appear brighter someday.

And after revealing the secret,
You discover that life on the other side of the curtain was so harsh.
Until you moved beyond the dark curtains and revealed it all.
The day you accepted reality and decided to build a life without curtains,
When you learnt that poverty is only in the inside,
And you could turn it inside out.
A past that you’ll always thank for coming first.
*koroboi –paraffin lantern