Strength

Surrounded by danger and desperation,

surrounded by poverty and frustration,

surrounded by pessimism and sorrow,

surrounded by discrimination and degradation

there is strength.

All that is known is that jobs make money.

All that is known is preparing for the problems of today.

No one has money for the problems of tomorrow.

Distance.

Loose connections.

Parental bonds thinning and family bonds wearing.

Fault lies in the plight.

No one has time to foster the family in a world of living on the minimum wage that tethers them to the bottom.

School? Learning?

Second to making that fast money.

Morals? Risk?

Second to making the days' pay.

Caught?

Blame it on the shell carrying the little heart left.

That color. It's them.

Not me.

Tethered to the cycle.

Feeling the weight of that chain and ball.

Questioning the compulsory  nature of that ball and chain, of that tether, of that pessimism, of that sorrow.

Wondering if school is more than the droning of the well-off but the key to unlocking the cycle.

Understanding that three jobs don't add up to a career, just a lot of work and empty tears.

Maybe trying will get to somewhere.

Something.

Out of this endless turmoil.

Spit in the face.

Don't care.

Shot down a thousand times.

Stood up a thousand and one.

Say the words of your ignorance and lies that were poured into your hollow soul with a silver spoon.

Pity is all there is left for those who land in that broad path of ease and only choose to use it to carry hate and trample those on the rough and narrow path.

I am not this label.

I am not my parents.

Their mistakes keep them in the bondage of the bottom.

That stigma carries no weight.

The sting of the stereotype that is inscribed in my forehead seen by all who cross paths with me is bandaged.

It may never heal.

But this sting is drive to rise.

Rise higher than the oppressors who were born on that wide path.

Higher than the ignorant souls who spat in my face.

Now taking that pain, drive, and diploma with pride.

But living and thriving with those wounds cut deep inside.

Sealing them the best that you could

while you return to the bottom to help those stuck in muck of being misunderstood.