Poverty, a prison,
not with iron bars
but with invisible boundaries
that trap the soul in plain sight.
It is the long walk to nowhere,
the empty hands that reach for bread
and return with nothing.
It is the silence in the stomach,
the noise in the mind,
the weight of tomorrow
when today has not been fed.
Poverty is a ceiling that refuses to rise,
a floor that keeps collapsing,
a door that stays shut
no matter how many times it is knocked.
It watches children grow without growing,
with eyes wide and voices quiet,
learning early that dreams
are luxuries not everyone can afford.
Poverty is the cold side of the world
where effort is not enough,
where talent dries up
beneath the glare of lack,
where hope comes dressed in secondhand clothes
and still gets turned away.
It is not just lack of money,
it is the erosion of dignity,
the slow fading of self-worth,
the exhaustion that lives in the bones.
Poverty is a prison.
And millions sit in its cells
with no sentence,
no crime,
just circumstance.
But prisons can be broken
just like Prison Break!
A voice can rise in the stillness,
a hand can reach through the bars,
a system can be changed.
Hope is not a visitor;
it lives in the cracks,
in the fight,
in the stubborn refusal
to be forgotten.
One spark,
one chance,
one act of courage
and the walls begin to fall.