"Rise"

Rise

My ancestors, aching and aging, 

their perseverance and persistence to pave the way for actions

To follow, forcefully, forthrightly, to freedom,

did not release nor render the outcome they sought nor we seek.

It is still being put into motion, 

as there is often a lot of commotion causing chaos,

Injustices rapidly firing racial tensions, 

but racial tensions that already existed way back when my ancestors lived.

Ever trying to bridges broken gaps,

To break the chains of oppression that severed their souls,

Trying to find their identity that was invisible, but innate because God created them.

Persistence and perseverance is not always easy.

My ancestors sang hymns to God, 

in broken blues, in broken tunes,” We shall overcome some day”

They tried traversing the tensions of their trials in tears.

Their tears are still felt till this day, their aches and their pains, 

their moans and their groans are felt.

They are felt within me, when I struggle,

They are felt within me because I am a Black woman in America,

Who daily has to wrestle,

 with the fact that there will always be a struggle for me and people like me. 

Though I’ve tried to ignore the fact that America

S flag is known for it’s fake freedom and so called independence stained in blood,

 Ever Bearing the scars of centuries past, it can’t be ignored.

We deliver speeches that leave people speechless, 

when nothing is even spoken that needs to be spoken.

What needs to be spoken,

 is that there won’t be change until one sees the need to change,

For otherwise each chapter stays the same and no one is to blame. 

My ancestors have shown that, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb in his skin and walk around it” for otherwise is to kill a mockingbird,

And to kill a mockingbird is to kill us.

My ancestors wept and got weary, 

Yet they rose rebelling against the inequalities in society,

They were serious, though they had setbacks,

Though the flesh on their backs were tore ,

from being whipped,

While their necks were severed as they hung from trees like “strange fruit”. 

My ancestors struggled and experienced things such as,

grief, depression,despair,

But they rose in the midst of the thorns and thistles that surrounded their everyday lives.

Struggle is inevitable.

True strength doesn’t come with holding in pain, but in feeling the pain,

In processing pain and working through it. 

Black people have experienced centuries of pain.

Black people are more than the negativity and stereotypes.

We are more than mockingbirds, caged birds waiting to sing.

My ancestors have shown me this.

 Their blood runs through my veins.

There struggle did not stop their many successes and accomplishments,

Our many successes and accomplishments.

Though my ancestors were enslaved,

they have risen and become preachers, teachers, scientists, mathematicians, actors, poets, singers, lawyers, doctors, therapists, counselors.

My ancestors have shown me that even while I have my struggle with major depressive disorder,

that I can rise in spite of,

That people like me can rise in spite of,

For in In the words of Langston Hughes,

“ My hands!

My dark hands!

Break through the wall!

Help me shatter this darkness,

To smash the night,

To break this shadow

Into a thousand lights of sun,

Into a thousand whirling dreams

Of Sun!”