The prize

 Is wealth abundance, poverty dearth?

One inspires to gaze through the skies into the endless mass of heaven,

Admire twinkling stars, that reflect charisma and elegance;

The other apprises to look down into the tarnished earth, to dig deeper

But beyond the rocks, the molten heat awaits to burn down the dreamers.

Does it lie buried within the rich? Or does it masquerade as poverty? For humanity, must be veiled.

The little girl, braided hair and barefooted, trotting towards the field she revised,

Pluck the leaves, skiff, manure, do not stop until dark;

The frail lady, cushioned in the powerful arms of different men,

To secure a penny, to feed the lamenting child at home;

With roughened hands, gently clasped together, scars accentuated by gritted dirt,

Ardently glaring into by passers eyes, praying, the leathered devices pity their empty bowls

Decode the solemnity of money. A colored paper? A metallic disc? The instrument of life?

The exuberant mighty flood, engulfing infinitely within its reach

Amidst the endowment of marshy water, victims, open eyed, strive to quench thirst;

Our pride, the producers, nurturing the golden kernels

Succumb to a coiled rope tightened around the neck;

Shrouded in the terrors of war, blanketed by bullets humming a lullaby,

Is that where the chronicle of humanity lies, wait

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ing to be washed clean by a bloodbath?

Survivors, perpetually enduring in the contention between

The hope to behold a new dawn break, the hope to caress death

The fear of greeting death, the fear of waking up to the incessant torment.

The silent screams, the raging whispers, the invisible tears…

No, perhaps they do not complain. For who is the patron?

The ailing father? The hungry child? The tormented mother? Or the desperate forlorn self?

The atheist and the men of God fight, either God is a delicately sculptured myth or everything is 

God’s will,

But what unites them is their tenacious sentiment condoning and accepting destiny’s fault,

It’s not confined; the forsaken too have embraced fate:

They laugh, they cry, they love,

But they know they are a different species of a mere lookalike tribe.

Can the absence of a beard? Can the fair skin? Can thy gender unveil humanity?

If so, please recuperate humanity, and discipline the inferior to eternally protect it.

With the first cries comes every soul to life,

In every first sleep, the muscles flex a beautifully rested smile.

We heard, listened, empathized but failed

And it’s apprehensible we lost, for there never was a victory,

Graced by death; reduced to ashes, decomposed or boxed

The prize, immortality, remains untouchable to all