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Slum-Dweller



We can't sleep early.
We can't sleep enough.
We can't sleep together,
One room, not enough.
  
We must wake up early.
We must stand in a queue.
We must not shit in pants
Hold the shit like a glue.

We must stop the fights
Of the husbands and the wives
That's the life in the chawl
One lives till he dies.

We don't save at all
We don't get enough
We live in today
Future stays in the next suburb.

We don't ask for rights
We forget what is right
We learn only wrongs
We grow in the night.

Our schools are full of us,
But education.
Talent isn't a big deal
But opportunities limitations. 

We aren't scared of cops
We are habitual to the allegations
We are habitual to the blame
For this country's demotion.

When we grow we can't reach
The sky-filling branches of the tree
Like a mushroom we have to be
Be a shelter for the family.

We are poets,
We are singers,
We are fighters.
We are the experts. 
But when we drink.

But when we don't drink,
We dwell in reality.
Dreams shrink to nothingness
A life's cruelty. 











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