Powder Blue Box

the injustice of the powder blue box standing proudly on the corner of fifty-seventh and fifth A symbol of division extending the partition between wealth and everyone else back around the way the old shabby half shingled house was home to the second hand charlie brown size thirteen shoes worn by the size thirteen girl sitting on the second stair stoop when she was just thirteen no one heard her scream no one saw her run and hide in shame under the rough wool of poverty that had never comforted or warmed her her playgrounds were clotheslines for volleyball and cracked tarred side streets for hopscotch forced to scratch and climb each day up through that crammed and crowded pit fighting to reach the light before the trap was sealed shut on the door there’s a quota, you see only some will be allowed a chance to be free everyone knew most will not make it through the others doomed to return and make do forced to accept false narratives and live by corrupted rules but just remember the megaphone fed down into the abyss is an acoustic indoctrination and it never ceases to play “two plus two equals four” a deliberate echo to trance the suffocated poor yet one percent know the real truth two plus two equals anything you want it to entrenched in power they refuse to let go protecting the system they must maintain the status quo so she stands in line to make the climb determined to reach the top in time she knows her freedom is just beyond that light as she hears the trap door slam behind she feels the warmth of destiny on her face knowing that countless others are left behind trapped in a sinkhole of poverty and oppression in a mental cage that denies their rights