Citizens of Annawadi

This poem is based on the book Behind the Beautiful Forevers.

Drip...

Rain falling on the rooftop

It shatters against the earth below

Helping everything else around it grow.

The flowers begin to bloom.

Their lovely fragrance chasing away the gloom.

...Drop

Gone...the water has become fire

Gone...from kind to frugal

Gone...Gone...Gone

We will no longer be led on!

You are ever growing,

Your anger never slowing,

At the bottom it is glowing,

But you are not all knowing.

You tend to forget 

That you are an ever present threat

In a world we wish to save,

But this attention that you crave?

It is a dim glowing ember

Burning brighter every December.

Until at once there is a roaring fire

With all our hopes on a pyre you have created.

Your eyes alight with hatred 

As if this feeling is sacred

You hold it close to your chest

As you down your red splattered dress.

Your daughter is not impressed

As you make her more stressed

With all the lives you could have saved...but didn't

As you smile the hatred in your eyes glints

We wish you gone

Once upon a time we were a newborn fawn,

But now we refuse to be your pawn.

And when you look to us for help? We will act on

The hatred we have dwelled on for far to many years.

We will chase you out Asha, and our hatred

Will burn brighter than the pyre you have made

And you will wish to have been water instead of flames. 

-Citizens of Annawadi