Sep 13, 2009

Juice

While stopping at a gas station in Colombia me, my sister, my mother, and my aunt had an encounter with a young boy selling juice to support his family. Seeing poverty like this had got me thinking for a while. This differs from those commercials of an old man holding up a little girl in a dirty little place filled with huts.

He looks apathetic
As if this is a routine
It seems so sick
He doesn’t seem to mind

The dirt has become a part of his face
He was born
This is his place
He holds it without scorn

No time for youth
No chance of learning
But he can return
Once all the juice has left the box

His age is not known
It is apparent his innocence is gone
He knows what I am
But will never understand
I know what he is
But I can only hope

We share an inquiring look
For the most split of seconds
Yet we break it and we are left
With only a foot placed on the bridge

A foot which we both take away
I remove it out of unwillingness
He removes because he can’t cross
We are both found where we started
Were we ever lost?

I am just another face
From time to time he may ponder
That he may not be to me
He may be more

But now he is touched with money
He didn’t even have to sell anything
He knows what matters
Yet he knows not I’m touched with memory
Yet none of this matters
Once all the juice has left the box

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