Hamster Wheel Of Poetry

• Zoey Wade, Grade 12
• Poetry
• 2015

The deep crevice-like wrinkles crawl over his face.
His dark, leathered skin confesses he’s been through more than the weather.
The sticks- his limbs- could snap at any moment;
yet he works all day, and he works all night.
Hard work, strenuous work, all to put food on the table,
but there’s no table, no furniture, barely a house,
a mere shelter from the wind, for him and his four year old grandson.
The single shard of light in his dark life, the reason he keeps on going.
His aching bones scream at him to stop!
Just stop…
But he can’t. He simply can’t.
The big, dark eyes of his grandson look up at him adoringly,
they’re hungry, but they laugh unconditionally.
That sound, that innocent sound, fuels him to get up in the mornings.
So he will continue to work so his grandson can have an education,
So he can escape the godforsaken, never-ending, hamster wheel of poverty.