By the roadside, on a heap of waste, I bloomed a flower.
Feeding on the scraps of your discarded affection, my mind rots, don’t you know?
Yet you pile the blame on me, no matter how small my fault.
Your fathers call you with warmth, Come here, my child.
But I have no father, the street itself became my shelter.
So I bow to the road as my mother, a naïve fool, unwanted and alone.
You fight over borders and lines on maps,
But I wonder, what use are maps, if they’re nothing but fences in the end?
The whole world is mine, wherever I wish, I have the right to go.
Who can stop me? Tell me, who has that power?
You go to school, writing lessons of the future on your foreheads,
I gather the scraps of your books you’ve thrown away,
and lie down with the emptiness of an open field pressed to my chest.
When your sadness comes, you turn to glowing digital screens,
When mine arrives, I only know the clouds above, the scent of earth, the touch of open air.
You quarrel endlessly over self-interest,
While I become grateful, obedient, for just one meal of rice.
With that one meal, you make me bear your sins,
But whether today or tomorrow,
remember the burning heat of that sin will return to you.
I do not know whose fault my birth was,
or whose mistake made me this unwanted harvest.
Yet being born a stray feels almost a blessing,
for I have seen the true face of mankind.
Born on the street, I know I shall perish on the street.
I leave behind only one regret,
whose scarred womb gave me life?
If only I could see her face, just once.