The tourist is a particularly strange creature
They will spend a week's worth of your pay on a necklace made of twine and polished stone
Women will talk down to the elderly
Finding amusement in their manner of speech
They will gawk at the men selling peanuts in the streets
While their husbands gaze longingly at the girls on the corners
Those men will promise the young ones everything they could ever dream of
Never offering an explanation when they leave them to wake up alone
They will feed the hungry
As long as they can recite the Lord’s Prayer in proper English
Turn away and whisper under their breaths,
“Perhaps they would not be so poor,
If they didn't breed like vermin.”
They will find snippets of us
Create a version of us in their minds
Becoming enamored with the idea
Remaining disgusted at the reality