This city does not want you
now that its roads are paved
and skyscrapers stand tall
against the elements
that burn the skin off your bent backs
as you trudge on blisters
born of social apathy
and political indifference
towards villages that have
nothing that can keep you there.
Your DNA is imprinted
on the very bricks that
won’t house you.
Your sweat trickles
into the fissures
that you pack with concrete
which, once solidified,
will block you out
from the dreams that
you’ve always dreamed
but will never realise
because this city
does not want you.
The virus does, though.
It also wants the ones
who shunned you
when you had nowhere to go…
and when you get there,
it wants you too.