How Dare I?

Yes. I admit it. I am guilty.

I have lived beyond my useful years.

How dare I think I could enjoy

A comfortable life in my later years.

Yes, I should have known before,

Way in advance of choosing a lineage

That poverty was a lifetime sentence

Which allows not even basic privilege

Yes, it’s me, I brought it on myself,

My bad decisions were purposeful

Although I knew better than that

I truly wanted a life cursed-ful.

Naida Lavon

Diary Poem 12/11/10

Prompt: from Sidney Poitier’s autobiography, page 40ish

“…the culture’s merciless indictment of me.”