There’s a feeling that threatens to burst out of your chest

the anger, the disappointment, the passion

And every time you fail to speak,

you regret it and wish you could have explained your take

But instead,

you just question their motives and their opinions

and you never get your answers

 

Later you sit and stare at the wall,

formulating the perfect response for a conversation that happened four weeks ago

And your mind churns and you can’t think of anything else

until the frustration overwhelms you and you decide that you will take no more

So you decide,

what choice do you have but to speak up,

to tell others and to tell yourself that you have a voice?

 

You start out small,

coming out of your shell bit by bit

Participating in discussions and listening to others

and learning from them more than you ever knew was possible

And you finally learn how to word your own arguments

so that people will listen when you speak

and ask how, ask why, and respond back

 

Sometimes it’s eloquent,

the speech carefully pieced together with delicate diction and enthusiasm

Maybe it’s heated,

with words spilling out faster than your mind can even comprehend

Or it’s a political argument that goes on for hours

or it’s about whether or not time is a human construct

 

You speak to friends, acquaintances, family, siblings

and you find platforms on social media to speak your mind

And you thread your opinions into your justifications,

fighting for others who cannot be there to fight for themselves

You develop arguments about the importance

of listening and education and knowledge,

not arrogance and ignorance and endless hatred

 

You disagree with many and you find that that’s okay

and sometimes you still think it’s infuriating,

but you try your best simply to spread the word

You try to get people thinking about things they’ve never thought of before

and you never stop learning, because the day you stop learning

is the day you cease to be human

It’s the day you stop growing, teaching—

the day your passion ebbs away

 

And you have decided

that the day you stop fighting for what you believe in

might very well be the day you die

 

(I found the scholarship on powerpoetry.org.)