If we eventually are What we eat, Then the greed of humans Leads to what we shall be. Whole supply chains of deceit, Adulterations and interventions. Additives, colours, hormones and chemicals unnatural, All distorting Purity.

Alien components floating through

Our bloodstream,

Layers of strangeness Lining organ tissues, Molecules that attach to cellular growth, Surely reforming our DNA...

Perhaps glazing our core. With impurity.

Yet remember,

Our mind lies above this deceit,

Our choice, to embrace positivity Our willingness, To uphold its beauty and purity.

Fleeting Childhood

Childhood

is an abstract concept To many who grow up too fast. Migration and work are real. While homely comforts are a thing Of their past.

Silence and servitude

Crucial to the roles in which they are cast. They wake the earliest. Serve round the clock, And eat the last.

Crowing up with scolding, Discrimination and violence, That should leave us aghast. Childhood, indeed. Is a concept of their past.

Samia Ahmed is a poet from Bangladesh and has been widely published. A wistful Existence is her first book of photo-poetry, collaborating with a Czech photographer.