Seventeen years

Seventeen years it has been ..
During which quite a bit I have seen ..

Met a lot of people .. some nice, some mean ..
Who would be friends only for selfish mean..

I had come to this desert today minus seventeen with a dream ..
Of some day serving my kin for dessert - peaches and cream..

But most of the years have been rather lean..
For meals, I could provide them only rice and bean..

Only satisfaction I can derive is a dwelling ..
On which my mother and father were so keen ..

All these years led life with head held high ..
Never compromised on my ethics.. In being direct I wasn’t ever shy..

Never cared for freebees .. never licked boss’s ass..
I stuck to honesty and hardwork .. for me the rest was crass ..

Eminently possible that such things denied me progress ..
I was always cast aside.. but then I wasn’t interested in such rat race ..

Looking back .. was it my inability to break-through ..
Or was it a matter of pure chance .. that still remains to be seen ...

Seventeen years .. Built so little ... Razed quite a lot ..
What a life.. and what a waste it has been!

Today I am abandoned, left all alone with my kid ..
Fending for myself and providing everything that he’d need ..

Have just a lone friend to lean back on ..
When I feel exhausted and unsure of carrying on ..

Even those small pleasures people seem to us deny ..
They take sadistic delight in two friends' pain..
Could someone tell me why? ..