Anger

Humanity has been at a devastating impasse.

Women and men fighting one another.

Black and white.

Gay and straight. 

Young and old.

We are at war with eachother.

Both metaphorically and literally.

Blood is shed, disease is spread, babies are crying, children are dying

And yet here we sit,

Bickering

Over who gets to marry who

Who gets to eat dinner

Who gets a quality education

Who gets a roof over their head

Who dies

And who doesn't.

You see, when you grow up like me

In a city filled with segregation,

Blacks live here, latinos live there, and white folk don't wanna live anywhere near you,

You get this feeling.

It's an odd sensation at first.

One you begin to feel at a very young age.

You feel it when you have to share your text book with three other girls.

You get it when you have to wait till Monday to eat your first meal.

You get it when you gotta go live with your grandma because your mama don't love you no more.

Or that's what you think.

At first, you don't know how to describe this feeling.

You go to everyone you know.

Your mama, your grandma, your teacher, your friends, the man that sits on the corner crying--begging--for anybody to please, just please give me something to eat.

And then, one day, someone leans down in your face, and real quietly they whisper,

"That is anger."

And you feel yourself errupt.

It ain't my fault I'm starving, ain't got no job, no steady home to live in, no one to call my daddy.

It ain't my fault I can't go to college, I don't see no future, and each and every day I wake up wonderin' if it'll be my last.

It ain't my fault.

So whose is it then?

That's the question, who?

If not me, if not my mama workin' three jobs, barely makin' enough to let me eat (don't even mention her eatin'), if not my teacher working too many hours just hopin' that maybe one of her babies will one day make it, if not my grandma who raised five children just to live in poverty for the rest of her days, then whose?

WHOSE IS IT?

That question, every thought, every dream, every waking moment invading your brain.

Who? 

Who?

WHO?

And it's when you see it, sitting in front of you, suit and tie, cigarette dangling from his dry, thin lips, rolls upon rolls of fat hanging off his sides

And he looks at you and says "Sorry son...we're just looking for someone who's...more experienced." 

With perfectly straight, artificially white teeth.

And a new watch on his wrist that probably costs more than your house.

Hell, even you.

It's then that you realize just how devestating this country is.

You, with a growling stomach at an interview for a job just to make $7.50 an hour.

Him, with a mansion awaiting his arival, a Rolls Royce with a seat too big, and a few maids on hand to clean up his mess.

It is him, it is them.

The corporations, the bankers, the government officials.

The fat, old, white men who drain you of everything you could've had.

Squeeze you until there's no more juice. 

It is them.

And it is us.

Them vs. Us.

Us vs. Them.

We are the oppressed, the beaten, the people treated like dogs.

And they are our enemies.

And together, we are their worst nightmare.

So the next time you ask me,

"Bro, why're you so angry?"

Don't get mad at me, when a yell and kick, and throw everything in my reach.

Because I have every damn right to be angry.

So why aren't you?