One man's meat is another man's poison
Your need is someone else's comfort
Your comfort is someone else's need
The beauty of life?
Or
The unfair nature of life?
I will let you decide.
A man sleeping on the cold streets at night
Wishes he at least had a carton for his mattress
Other than the cold tarmac
Or the cold side walk he sleeps on
A man sleeping on the cold streets at night
Wishes he had a worn out mattress
Other than the carton he has had for most of his street life
Having worn out after being rained on for several days
Torn almost non existent as a mattress to lay his head on
A man sleeping on the cold streets at night
Wishes he could get a telephone booth with a roof for the night
To shelter his head from the rain
To have his space of someplace to spent the night
In his dreams he calls it a hotel room
A mere dream most nights
And a fantasy he lives through on blessed nights, he calls them,
The few nights he gets a telephone booth to sleep in
Before he finds someone else already occupied it
Or the paid excavator removed them all
As everyone can currently own a smart phone
And there is no need for telephone booths anymore
A man sleeping on the cold streets at night
Wishes he went to school
He strongly believes that his life would have turned out differently
No maybes or what ifs
He is certain he would not be on the streets
Begging for money and drinks
Necessities to help him exist
A man sleeping on the cold streets at night
Wishes he had skills
Skills to build himself a mabati house
From all the scrap metal he keeps selling
"The city will never run out of scraps", he tells himself
For pollution is what man enjoys to do most
Out of ignorance
Out of irresponsibility
Out of pride
You say that you are creating employment for someone else
But I call it stupidity for you are killing humanity
Destroying the land
And yet you are the first to complain
"Oh The city is dirty. Someone should clean it up!"
You demand
You insist
But do you do your part?
"A good citizen" you call yourself
But a hypocrite I call you
If you cleaned after yourself
And I cleaned after myself
Wouldn't the city be clean?
And we can hire people to tend to the flowers?
Plant more trees?
Dig more bore holes?
Don't give lame excuses for your unclean nature
A man leaving in a mabati house
Wishes he could earn a little more
To be able to move to a wooden house
To avoid freezing to death when it is too cold
Or cooking alive when it is too hot
For the iron sheets don't react too well to the two extremes
Uncomfortable living
Striving for comfortable living
But what is your purpose for earning a little more?
To exploit the ones around you?
To what extreme will you go to earn a penny for the wrong reason?
Sell drugs to minors?
Is child trafficking and human trafficking your pleasure?
What if they were your child?
What if they were your parent?
What if it was you?
The seller becomes the item of trade
Would you then smile?
Would you then agree to what you were doing to others?
Copper cut into circles
A number embedded on it during the melting process
Then given value
Is it for such you kill someone?
You call it money
It is a metal
A mineral item given importance because someone decided
"Batter trade doesn't work anymore!
Let's invent something that will not rot!"
Then give value to it and ask for it so as to offer a service or a good
Receive if for the service we offer or the good we sell
It may have value
But human value is higher than it
A man living in a wooden house
Wishes he had curtains for his walls
Do some interior decor
Hide the rotting wall
For paint doesn't help that much
And wallpaper is a luxury for him
His next big dream is to move to a stone house
But will his dream ever come true?
A man living in a stone house
Feels content
Before other priorities kick in
Human sanitation
Sharing bathrooms and the toilet with the neighbors
Cooking in the same room he sleeps
And it seems like he may soon have a permanent roommate
A wife
And kids may follow soon in the equation
So he wishes he had a bigger room
"At least with a kitchen", he tells himself
A man living in a stone house
Wishes he had the toilet and the bathroom inside the house
Same way as he has a kitchen
He fears to leave his house at night to go relieve himself
As security in our current world has worsened
Gone are the days when you could live in a house without a fence or a gate round it
Gone are the days when you could go to bed with your house not under lock and key and a security alarm
Gone are the days when you could walk out in the night to see the beauty of the sky
Gone are the days when the night was meant for people to be in their homes resting
The night is now a place to be dreaded
For bad people lurk in the night
Robbers and rapists just a few to state
A man living in a stone house
Which has a kitchen and a sanitation area inbuilt
Wishes he had more than one room
A bedroom for himself and his wife
"The children are growing up", he says
"It ain't proper that parents and children sleep in the same room"
The child who sleeps in the sitting area
Wishes he had his own room
A teenager looking for privacy
Looking for his own identity
The "Who am I"
Patience grows thin at times
Anger rages on
Looking for the sense of independence and responsibility
Too young to rent his own place
But at least he can dominate his own room
The child with his own room
Wishes to have a plasma TV installed in it
With the latest Play Station and Home Theater
Does he even know some other child is sleeping hungry out there?
With no clothes or shoes to wear?
All these the diversities of life
You have
But are not thankful of what you have
You forget someone else like you lucks what you've got
Thin line between necessities and luxuries
For certain necessities are people's luxuries
And certain luxuries are people's necessities
Are you the person who takes having clean water to drink and flush your toilet a by-the-way
The person who takes having a car a necessity
And living in a house worth Ksh. 430,000 per month a luxury?
Or are you the person who takes having clean water to drink a blessing
The person who takes getting water clean or dirty to flush the shared toilet a necessity
One necessity among many that you strive hard to get fulfilled
And moving to live in a wooden house a luxury you hope one day to be able to afford?
Parting shot
Take time to be thankful for what you have
Don't be proud or think it is normal to own what you own
Don't misuse resources
Don't live in ignorance
Don't stop dreaming
Don't stop striving to achieve your dream
Live for a better tomorrow
And be an ambassador of a better tomorrow
Stop and rethink your life
