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<h3>Poem by <span class="has-inline-color has-luminous-vivid-orange-color">Refilwe J Mokgatlenyane</span></h3>
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<p class="has-text-align-center"><a href="https://www.pexels.com/search/Lottery/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Photo by Lay Low from Pexels</a></p>
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<p>Have you ever lived your life waking up from a shack?<br>Feeding on dry breadcrumbs every morning and even in the evening when you come back?<br>Have you ever lived a life that gives you a reason to give up because nothing seems to fall into track?<br>Well, let me tell you a story of the man who won the lottery</p>
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<p>Dressed in tattered clothes stained with dirt and mud,<br>Feet as bare as a bear without its fur<br>Hair wrinkled and messy like he’s had an electric shock<br>The man who won the lottery pierced through the crowd with a victorious walk</p>
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<p>His eyes were as bright as a flashlight<br>His body communication spitting volumes that he’s going to walk away victorious<br>The mind of the man who won the lottery was a river of hope<br>A river of hope assuring him that he’s about to be thrown a rope<br>And with this rope he’ll climb over to his success</p>
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<p>Looking at the people around him dressed in dresses and suits<br>The man who won the lottery smiled and said to himself,<br>“Success isn’t determined by the luxury you have from your past,<br>Neither is it by riches nor dust,<br>But by the dream you birth in your mind and how hard you intend to make that dream come true at last”</p>
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<p>Before trying their luck on spinning the lottery,<br>Everyone was interviewed on their views and expectations<br>And the man who won the lottery said,<br>“if I win this lottery, I will resume my life,<br>I will get myself back to college to complete my studies,<br>I will buy my mother a house and then make my beautiful lady my wife,<br>I will give back to the poor and anyone else I’ve seen suffer<br>I am willing to try by all my power to win this lottery, no matter how much it gets tougher”<br>The man who won the lottery was a man with big, big dreams</p>
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<p>Everyone took turns spinning the lottery wheel<br>Each of them losing hopes when seeing others failing<br>But the man who won the lottery told himself that he will not let this chance slip from his hands and go away<br>He told himself that he could make that day his day<br>He had been given cards, and he had to determine how smart to play</p>
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<p>The turn of the man who won the lottery came<br>And unlike the others who had lost hope, his dreams and hopes were still the same<br>He had kept his mind in a rigid position, like it’s been put inside a frame<br>He spun the lottery and waited for it to hit right on the spot<br>His hopes still flamed up, and the lottery halted, jackpot!<br>The man who won the lottery won,<br>That victory marked the beginning of his dream journey to success<br>Everyone was surprised but the man who won the lottery wasn’t,<br>Because he portrayed a character portrayed by none of his competitors,<br>_-self-belief and hope</p>
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