Two girls and water
Melbourne, Australia
2021, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Golden sun slips through her curtains.
Groggy eyes slowly open as she rolls to grab the cup.
One sip, two sips, three sips.
Her overnight thirst is quenched.
Dawn.
Cracked lips, dry tongue aching for water.
Little Abdul is crying.
She grabs the bucket and heads out.
Her favourite flip flops arrive to the bathroom.
Lukewarm water sweeps away her fatigue,
Exfoliant, rose mist spray, hydration cream to follow.
Tattered sandals marked with thousands of hours of voyage.
Beneath a lonely moon, across the withered soil
To the desolate tap.
School starts in a frenzy.
Her latte’s bittersweet aroma skims to and fro
She grabs it and sips delightfully.
Liquid flows from the tap mouth.
The bucket is too heavy for her frail being.
Alleviated, she laps some water hungrily.
Distant footsteps are already arriving—
Soon, everyone will line up
Behind this one, desolate tap.
Squeals and laughter as the volleyball soars in the air
They pour water into their shirts and down their mouths
To relinquish all that was lost.
One step, ten steps, one thousand steps.
She empties the bucket into their water container.
Little Abdul waves as she sets off once more.
The end-of-day bell dings itself five times.
She takes a drink and snacks on pastries
Before delving into a world of chemistry and mathematics.
Across the barren, cracked land
Past appealing puddles
Yet the preceding pain restrained her lips.
The creek is venomous
And temporary relinquishments are costly
Or at least Aaliyah’s corpse said so.
She closes her books and follows the fragrance down to the table.
Roast beef and fresh juices for dinner—
They eat, fulfilled and joyous.
Back to the tap
Except it is desolate no more
But instead is the carrier of hope
for ones just like her.
She stands behind dozens of heads.
The bustling day has come to an end
She steps merrily into the hot tub
The steamy water will sure fuel an ethereal dream.
She twists the tap and water flows out
Impatient slurs sound behind her
Hurriedly, she turns off the tap and walks away
Her sore yet determined back carries the water
Like precious diamonds, a paragon of gems
Nothing else compares.
Reflection
Reflection
My work was inspired from the research that I conducted for this piece. According to the WHO and the UN, more than one-seventh of the world live in water-scarce conditions, and people struggle everyday for the basic necessities like being hydrated and having proper hygiene systems. Many people, especially children, die from drinking unclean water or simply from thirst. The horrifying and heartbreaking fact that stood out to me the most is that women and girls have a lifetime duty to supply their family with water, and they quite literally spend their entire day looking for water sources and transporting it to their family for survival. I was astounded at this knowledge and imagined myself as a girl who spent many hours a day simply carrying a bucket of water between a tap and my home. This knowledge propelled me to write a poem contrasting the stark differences in living between two girls coming from different families--one from an average-income family and the other from Qatar, one of the most water-scarce places in the world. With this knowledge, I will endeavor in my life as a high schooler to be more aware, preserve my daily use of water, and inform those around me. With this poem, I want to simply encourage the reader to save water and be informed of how blessed each and every one of us are to be simply having access to water to be able to drink it freely and use it for luxurious showers, for one toilet flush could equate to the amount of water one family depends upon for survival.