THE MAN WHO WON THE LOTTERY
Poem by Refilwe J Mokgatlenyane
Have you ever lived your life waking up from a shack?
Feeding on dry breadcrumbs every morning and even in the evening when you come back?
Have you ever lived a life that gives you a reason to give up because nothing seems to fall into track?
Well, let me tell you a story of the man who won the lottery
Dressed in tattered clothes stained with dirt and mud,
Feet as bare as a bear without its fur
Hair wrinkled and messy like he’s had an electric shock
The man who won the lottery pierced through the crowd with a victorious walk
His eyes were as bright as a flashlight
His body communication spitting volumes that he’s going to walk away victorious
The mind of the man who won the lottery was a river of hope
A river of hope assuring him that he’s about to be thrown a rope
And with this rope he’ll climb over to his success
Looking at the people around him dressed in dresses and suits
The man who won the lottery smiled and said to himself,
“Success isn’t determined by the luxury you have from your past,
Neither is it by riches nor dust,
But by the dream you birth in your mind and how hard you intend to make that dream come true at last”
Before trying their luck on spinning the lottery,
Everyone was interviewed on their views and expectations
And the man who won the lottery said,
“if I win this lottery, I will resume my life,
I will get myself back to college to complete my studies,
I will buy my mother a house and then make my beautiful lady my wife,
I will give back to the poor and anyone else I’ve seen suffer
I am willing to try by all my power to win this lottery, no matter how much it gets tougher”
The man who won the lottery was a man with big, big dreams
Everyone took turns spinning the lottery wheel
Each of them losing hopes when seeing others failing
But the man who won the lottery told himself that he will not let this chance slip from his hands and go away
He told himself that he could make that day his day
He had been given cards, and he had to determine how smart to play
The turn of the man who won the lottery came
And unlike the others who had lost hope, his dreams and hopes were still the same
He had kept his mind in a rigid position, like it’s been put inside a frame
He spun the lottery and waited for it to hit right on the spot
His hopes still flamed up, and the lottery halted, jackpot!
The man who won the lottery won,
That victory marked the beginning of his dream journey to success
Everyone was surprised but the man who won the lottery wasn’t,
Because he portrayed a character portrayed by none of his competitors,
_-self-belief and hope
Refilwe Mokgatlenyane is a young writer, an aspiring entrepreneur and an LLB student at the University of Botswana. Her writing journey has started way back since she was 9 years old, she started off as a short story writer and changed to novels and later on started specialising more on poetry writing.
