there was a little cheetah he had a dream one day
to run in the olympics in a land so far away
he boarded on a plane and flew across the sea
to a place in russia where the games would be
he went to the track a runner he would be
running in a marathon a sporty cat was he
then the time had come for the cheetahs race
he stood in a line and cheetah took his place
now the race was on cheetah took it slow
took it nice and easy with a steady flow
they ran for  quite  a while the race was very long
cheetah had a finish that was so very strong
as the finish neared he come to the front
then stepped us his speed like being on a hunt
he went like a train  like the speed of light
and flew across the finish line with no one else in sight
his  mission it was over and his race one won
he enjoyed his holiday that gave him so much fun

My first impression of the children's hospital was how nice everything was. It was new, with fish tanks and red sofas; pastel windows which made pretty colors on the floor when the sun went through them; walls were freshly painted and everyone talked with a smile. Everything just looked so peaceful.
It wasn't until my second visit that I saw the flaws. I was sitting on one of the red couches, waiting for my name to be called, and I was looking at the fish tank. A little girl was pressed up to the glass telling her mother that she could see nemo. But when I looked closer, I saw a little fish turned over floating at the surface. A man behind the glass quickly pulled it out of the tank, but I saw. That's when I started noticing other things. Like the bloodstain on the cushion next to me. And the fact that a few tiles were missing from the floor. The wood paneling had scratches on it; one of the pastel windows was taped up; and every parent was smiling, but the little kids holding on to them kept asking what was wrong.
Maybe that's just how hospitals are. They want you to think that everything's okay; that all that goes on inside are couches and fishtanks. They think that if they write out the word HOSPITAL in bubbly pink letters people might get it into their brains that everything's okay. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a hospital. Masking pain only works for so long, until broken bits and pieces push their way through.
I think hospitals are just fish tanks. Everyone is put on display for doctors and visitors and things seem okay for a while, you know, until they aren't. When a little nemo dies, they send away his body and just replace him with another orange fish that people can look at. We are all the cracks in the pavement; elevators shut down for repair; a phantom pain that nobody wants to believe is real. If you stand far enough away; if you distance yourselves from anything close to the word hospital, you can just let yourself focus on the mask they put up. But once it's time, and you're sitting on a red couch in the lobby of the children's wing, with a kid asking you where her older brother went, you'll find yourself staring at the cracks in the facade with a single tear running down your face and with emptiness in your stomach.

There's a shower of rain
Yet the sun still shines
There must be a rainbow
Somewhere

An old man nods in his chair
He came from nowhere
And went nowhere else
Journeying all the way

Now he journeys through time
Down the aching years
Things that he's seen and done
Some good and wondrous
And some of them terrible

An old man nods in his chair
Travelling
Behind closed eyes
All the things he's seen and done
The people he's known
All the things he's said
Within his nodding head

Tears pour down his face
Down the canyons grooved by time
And yet he smiles
Gently and softly
There must be a rainbow
Somewhere

                       By Phil Roberts

Dear Papa,
Yesterday I saw something that I didn’t understand.
They were walking a little ahead of me.
But walking isn't the right word,
because there were two people
and only two feet.
It sounds like a math problem,
But nothing added up in my head.
It sounds like Vikram Vetal, papa,
But unlike the story you told me the other day,
there was no strong king or sly demon.
I saw, however, one ***** underfed boy of eight
dragging his crippled mother across the street.
Adhunik Shravan bal.
A Lilliputian on a Herculean task.
I couldn't decipher her age.
When you're that poor, does age matter?
Do they keep count of the days that pass by
when their aim is to survive just one?
Do they have a mirror to look into
and count the wrinkles on their face?
What does age matter to an eight year old boy
who, instead of attending school,
is hauling his handicapped mother across the road
on a seating board with wheels?
When I was that age, papa,
you bought me a skateboard
that was the exact leaf green
from my 50 colours oil pastels set.
I couldn't see the colour of their clothes.
There was the dark of the night,
yellow of the street lights
and everything was in sepia
like the picture you showed me
of your childhood.
You once told me you were raised in poverty too, papa.
Are there different kinds of poverty?
Did you get toys to play with
or were your clothes in sepia too?
I told you this sounds like a math problem, papa,
And here’s what doesn't add up.
Isn't a parent supposed to hold their child's hand
and show them how to cross the road?
I remember holding your hand,
looking left-right-left
and matching my steps
with your strides.
Fast, but never run.
Who taught him, papa?
Did he have his own papa to teach him?
How did he learn to walk fast enough
and pull hard enough
so that he and his mom made it across the road in time?
How did he find the strength if he was underfed?
He truly reminds me of Shravan bal,
because who else would carry his mother
across such distances.
I told you it sounds like Vikram Vetal, papa,
and now that I think about it, it really does.
Maybe this little boy is a young king.
Maybe he brings his vetal back home every day.
Maybe he hears her talk about her day.
And maybe, papa,
when he succeeds every night,
she saves him from an evil tantric.
An evil tantric called hunger.

I keep feelings to myself
More than I share them.
And I can't help itㅡ
It's how I grew up;
A second nature.

Sometimes,
It feels unusual
To let someone know
Of their existence
That I stray away from doing it.