Rise

**I wrote this poem for a poetry slam in which I had to incorporate Maya Angelou--Still I Rise into my own work....

You may write us down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
Devised by the same minds
That said skin too dark to be considered fair,
Was fair to judge.
So you trod us in the very dirt
We toiled to pick your shirt
Of cotton from.
But you see, our tears gave the soil strength to grow the crop
That kept us cropped out of the futures they had in mind.
And our blood was spun in the fibers woven to create the fabric of a country they didn't want us to be a part of.
Yet on the backs of blacks,
Ripped open by whips and broken glass
Is how we got here,
It's how THEY got here.
And they tell us to hang in there,
But we're still hanging from broken branches
Screaming that it isn't fair.
We paid our fares
To ride the bus to the American Dream
We can't seem
To take hold of.
See we still have their guns pressed hard to our temples
So my pen is pressed hard to paper.
They threaten to release a bullet to cease our dreams,
So I press harder to the parchment
So that maybe the ink will bleed through
To the next page of their hearts
Leaving a permanent reminder
That We Still Rise.

See now we have our First Amendment Rights
But just because we have our freedom of speech
Doesn't mean that they are obligated to listen.
And we know this.
So I press harder to the pages.
And they close their eyes.
I speak a little bit louder.
They scream back.
But like I said on the bloody backs of blacks
Ripped open by whips and broken glass
Is how we got here
And how They got here
And we can't stop until we get there.
Till this game is fair.

Because 70 years ago I wouldn't have been here getting my education.
And 70 years ago, I wouldn't have been here giving you education.
And it's 2010, there still shouldn't be a need for this kind of education.
And 70 years from now, I hope we don't need this kind of education.
I don't want my grand babies pens,
Running dry writing a means to an end
That we can write ourselves.
My children's words of passion shouldn't burn on virgin ears
Because this isn't new news to hear.
We have spent too many years
Fight for equality that still isn't here.


See our babies are birthed screaming because they know that they will always wear
Stereotypes that will never fit
And be forced to walk in shoes split
Open by the tragedies of the past.
Where babies swung from exposed wombs
As their mothers swung from age old trees
Where the ropes of their fathers had worn the bark down all too deep.
Where they smelled burning flesh seeping through their screens like the late night screams of the tortured.
Where they read by the light provided by crosses burning bright in their drive ways.

But now we can sit in the front of buses,
And shop in the same stores
And our President is Black
So they tell us we don't have to fight anymore
But they fail to account for why our brothers name's are still 'boy'
And our sisters bodies are still toys
And we still give birth to generations followed in stores
And pulled over for more
Than just routine traffic stops.
And our children sit in school,
Receiving an education substandard to the standards they outlined for us.
I'm sorry Bush,
But our children are still being left behind!

But we will still rise!
O I am sorry, does my sassiness upset you?
Well I didn't come here to be liked,
I came to start a revolution in your beautiful minds.
I cam to remind you that we still rise.
I speak to a room full of leaders with opportunities blazing in their eyes
I speak to battered ears that have refused to believe the same old lies.
I speak to tender hearts that don't take the time to justify their presence in this world,
They just prove it.
Knowing that united we stand, divided we struggle
But out of the huts of history's shame
We Rise.
Up from the past rooted in pain,
We Rise.
We are the black ocean, leaping and wide.
Welling and Swelling we bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
We Rise
Into the daybreak that's wondrously clear
We Rise.
Bringing the gifts that our ancestors gave,
We are the dream and the hope of the slave.
I Rise
YOU Rise
WE... Rise!