fire sydney typhoid 1901
TRANSCRIPT
Sometimes it was unbearable to see her like that,
Drowning in her own sweat, her forehead ablaze
I tried to be brave, and held her hand tightly whispering
“It’ll be alright,” I was a bad liar
“Bryton ...” she’s always murmur back weakily
I knew she was dead when her hand went
cold in mine.
Its never been the same after the death of my mother, although life is still filled with love from sibling, we are struggling,
Everyday is life or death.
My older sister now leads, sacrificing everything for my younger sister’s education
I was deprived of such luxury, education
Instead working in a shoe factory in Newtown
The smell of leather filling my nostrils, sweat and blood
And the reward? A few shillings
I saw the horses everyday
As I walked to the factory they were there
Crowding the already filthy streets
Creating a furry blanket of animals
But amongst the scum the poverty and death
I always saw a glimmer of colour, red, blue, yellow
They filled my heart with a hope, that someday my life would be a magnitude of colours instead of this erebus.
It was an ongoing drag, this past year
Work, eat (very little), work
But I had to, My younger sister was the only glimmer of colour in our family
Without her, everything, all that we have done would be for nothing
A plethora of question burden my mind,
An inferno that never dies
Why did she have to leave this world ?
Why do I have to work so hard?
Who had the right to steal my childhood?
No games, no playing nothing that hinted of a childhood
Stress clouds my happiness
My hands have forgotten how to hold pens
Only the cold scent of leather, filled my life
Sometimes I wish to fade into memory
A memory of mother or school
I remember learning, I remember my friends
But I remember one lesson only
The lesson of what killed my mother
The disease that took her life from her
The thing that destroyed our family
Typhoid Fever
One day, after work
I felt the heat consume by body
A familiar heat, that reeked of death
It contaminated me, a poison
I knew then that i would leave this chaos
This void between the ground and the sky