The Banana Thief

 

"The true theft is when society turns a blind eye to pain disguised as need."

At quiet dawn the heavy banana waits

beside the road where hunger learns to look.

Its green and gold hold ripened need, restrained,

a fruit that asks no questions of the poor.

I passed it daily, saying nothing then.

The wind alone recorded patient growth.

It hung as if the earth still trusted us,

believing want would not become a crime.

One night it’s gone, not stolen out of greed,

but drawn by ache too sharp for sleep to hold.

I heard the word “thief” spoken far too fast,

before the dark could finish telling why.

By morning tongues rehearsed the charge with ease.

No mouth asked what the stomach had endured.

The act was named; the cause stayed unseen pain,

buried beneath correct and orderly talk.

They set a snare with leaves and rotting scraps,

a lesson staged for those who cross the line.

Men gathered, warmed by borrowed right, convinced

that hunger must be beaten into sense.

I stood among them, quieter than fear.

I did not speak when silence was required.

He came for plain mercy, shaped as fruit,

still foolish enough to trust the world once more.

The first blow landed before breath found form.

The second proved how little truth could weigh.

His ribs pronounced starvation’s truth, aloud,

in grammar fists pretended not to read.

“I stole,” he said, as night began to thin,

“because my gut cried louder than my fear.”

I heard the words meet full silence, thick,

and felt how mercy learned to look away.

By dawn he hung beneath the watching road,

secured by knots the careful learned to tie.

I watched them name fed justice, clean and calm,

and turn their faces from the cost of bread.

The drums ignited borrowed joy at noon,

their thunder trained to drown unfinished thought.

Bright noise performed abundance’s lie, loud,

while I stood counting what was not returned.

They danced as if the ground were endless bread,

as if the earth could stretch beyond all mouths.

Outside the light, quiet hunger counted still,

and I began to learn that math by heart.

Ribs marked the sums no banner dared display.

The body kept accounts the state ignored.

One man had asked for food not gold, and paid

with everything his living ever was.

It’s easier to call that moment theft

than say the system failed before his birth.

The word “thief” sealed official sleep, safe,

and left me waking with its weight intact.

Hunger stays hidden not by muted cries,

but by the dazzle of excessive feasts.

We praise the feast as earned reward, and miss

the chairs that were not offered in the room.

We learn to take before we learn to share.

We crown desire and call it virtue’s proof.

The ground falls back from open mouths, and still

we blame the soil for failing to keep pace.

Poverty is not the lack of effort shown.

It is the wall disguised as open air.

A mirror-polished cage of choice reflects

the poor as authors of their own restraint.

Some hoard the warmth while others split one flame.

Some guard their bread as if it were their god.

I saw that care itself became revolt,

a fragile act the world refused to name.

Tears here are saved like debts that grow in dark.

They wait for nights when no one’s eyes remain.

What breaks a soul is delayed justice, slow,

sold to us all as patience, dressed as good.

For here, hunger presides as final law-

a faith, a judge, a quiet, constant theft.

And I remain, not innocent, but changed,

still walking past that fence each quiet dawn.