Approximately 15 million people across the globe live off trash. Landfill Lives is a poverty poem, an attempt to highlight this horror.
Landfill Lives
scavenging for scraps
no spellings or subtractions again today
when you're poor but don't want to sell your body or beg
landfill treasure hunting calls
to feed mother, father, sisters, brothers
shacked up in a metal hut perched on a pile of trash
you've got no rubber gloves to shield against
broken glass, syringes, rotting flesh, and faeces
no face mask to armour against
the stench of garbage and shit
no blindfold so you can pretend
to be at school / even for a minute
dowsed in deadly diseases, you work all day
2.50 the compensation
that'll buy you some bread, carrots, and rice
won't stretch to a sausage or chop
one kid / thrilled to have spotted an outfit
scrubbed up and went to school
only to be told he was too smelly, too disease-ridden
no landfill kids here please
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