A Flower Blooming In The Slums

In the slums, where darkness drenches every corner
and walls are corroding away,where the moon refuses to shine,
stealing every bit of glimmer, there is no light.
Children nearly unclothed, shivering as their skin is
harassed by the frigidness of the midnight breeze.
Their tears, frozen in time, yet continue to emerge from within.

In the slums, where music seems nonexistent.
The only sounds are constant clanging of trash,
being scattered all over the streets. The sounds of footsteps
as the children rummage through the dirty piles,
covered in shit and dirt they, like savages, they explore for little scraps
to calm their veracious appetite.

In the slums, so dirty and so poor, the adults
dispose of their watchful eyes, unable to handle
the miserable stress weighing down on their shoulders
and waste their time wishing for a different life.
Wishing and wasting, corroding, irrevocable time,
irreplaceable, while the young fend for themselves
in this new world of melancholic tragedy.

In the slums, there is a church. The floors splintered
with split wood and ceilings torn open by decay,
darkness dances with despair, because God was never there
to even catch a glance at the slowly deteriorating place.
Never was there to send some guidance
to the walking souls who lost their way a thousand days before.

But in the corner of the church lies a patch of flowers,
white as the light in the sky, with lime-green vines
that seem to embrace the earth,
they grow in abundance and give a new meaning
to the abandoned church. And when one sees them as they walk past,
they wonder how such a contradicting beauty can occur.
And when the children stop by, their eyes shine for just a moment
before they turn away and find more trash to dig through.
But for a moment, they find their salvation
through the flowers that bloom in the slums.