Please intellectual Nairalanders, I really need a sincere criticism of this poem before it's published. It's actually based on real life experience.


IT’S NEVER MY CHOICE

Poverty is a curse, But in a way
It’s a choice, so I was taught.
Born in a hurt like house full of holes,
So was my abode, though the choice was never mine.

The express for a lizard, a rat and a shrew,
Such serves the holes, in the walls of my abode
A good neighbor they’d serve,
If only they mind their business.

The mistake of leaving food open is a grievous offence
for the unwanted neighbors would devour without a consent.
Sharing a space with a rodent can be condole,
but allotting a portion of meal to it is unacceptable.

The quiet night is troubled by the gnawing of the rat,
With the tips of my toes partly gnawed,
So I’d wake to discover at times
.
The food was indeed covered, but my toes were barred.

The stench of the pile dirty wears, such is no
difference from that of a shrew or cockroach.
The air that is never fresh in my
abode but we have live to ignore such.

The weather is never fair, only when it rained at night
As the space for sleeps are sacrificed to bowls in the house.
Each is positioned to a fixed point,
To catch the droplet from the opened roof.

It’s never my fault, so its sounds and seems
But that life is a choice is an obvious truth
A glance at the past and how distance it is now,
Arose the feelings that I stoop to conquer.

U. N. Edwin.

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