Not a Third World Country

By Katelin Farnsworth

 

I’m going to be honest –

because no one else ever is

my first world problems are totally first world blessings

I had barely been alive when I thought I knew it all, I felt like I was down there with you, that I really understood your dilemma. That even though I had never actually witnessed a war or been a part of any bombing,

I definitely understood your pain.

just let me facebook these feelings first.

oh wait
here I am – I’m not in a warzone at all! Here I am.

putting tulips on the window sills     painting my face
I wouldn’t know pain if it hit me  boom  in the mouth

I actually can’t bear to think about the spiders and scorpions

ear bleeding thoughts

trapped deep

 

so instead I worry about:
black stockings “pull them up higher”
red lips bleached teeth,
always repeating a little mantra to myself

this is like so totally not a third world country.

 

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Not a Third World Country was highly commended in the African Prisons Project Poetry Competition 2013

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