The Music Box

You peer at me with stone set eyes,

Your nose twitched north in disgust

At the threads I wear to ply my trade

Your tongues roll with articulate slur

Ultimate expression of the creativity of hate

You ostracise me from

Label me the lowest of the filth and scum

And blame me for things I have no power over

But what do you know?

What do you know

Of the curse I have bore with my skirt this while

What do you know of the misery life has cast on me

A 12 year old turned mother

Abandoned at the death of my mother

Left to fend for myself and my little sister

Forced to burry the shame when they touched me

Shame would not feed our famished bellies

What was I to do?

What do you know

About the father who left me to the sun

When he acquired new wife

Were you reminded every waking hour

Of the life that was no longer yours

Turned away from your own home

How then do you stand there and judge me

You for whom life is just a yellow brick road

What do you know?

What do you know

Of the nights I fought NOT to sleep

Too scared to have another dream shattered

Terrified that if I slept I might wake from this nightmare

Haunted by the pain in sister’s eyes

Wondering what sin she had committed

What do you know?

What do you know?

You stand there and judge me in your pulpits

And pass laws to rid yourselves of my kind

Lowest of the scum

Bedrock crime and sin

What do you know?

What do you know

You who proclaims me sinner

And banishes me from your holy house

Where you house unchaste mothers

And applaud suited thieves

Because they give big offerings

You rant against my trade in the day

And visit my stall in the night

Bargaining for the lowest price

When the lady turns out

And yet your needs won’t disappear

Do you know how many marriages I save?

But how could you

How could you see any good I do

When to you I am merely filth

Who are you

That you should call me scum-

Immorality personified

What do you know to say I enjoy this life?

What do you see I enjoy

Is it the rape from the upholders of the law?

Or the bitter cold my thighs must bear

So that I can put food in my belly

What do you know

About the lonely life I am backed into

Or the sacrifice I endure every waking hour

So that my child may have a chance at life

Is my fault for the card I was dealt

Condemned to the street at 12

Spite all you want

But let he who is without sin

Cast the first stone

A beauty from Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds (Sonnet CXVI)

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
  If this be error and upon me proved,
  I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

 -- William Shakespeare


i am particularly in love with this piece coz seldom does one find a love poem so complete with the full circle and cycle that is life and love. a masterpiece from a master, i can only strive to achieve such aptitude