The upper hand,
they reprimand us.

Doubting our Christianity,
they call upon “god”
to enlighten us.

But you see, we’re dreamers;
grasping on to the only thing
this world hasn’t stripped us of -
our dignity. 

We exited the womb
writing gospel hymns to the lords above
asking for mercy and for change,
because we knew this world was unfit
the moment we were told
we needed more than two feet
to survive it.

You see,
we can’t all be the majority,
so we built a community for our creative minds
and we call ourselves writers.

We are the self-identified
intellectuals, dreamers,revolutionaries, prophets,
and inventors of today.

We bare forth our spirits
through the written word.

Through consonants and vowels
we strive to trump injustice and
above all, achieve
self-actualization.

We use manuscripts
as picket signs,
because change, for us,
begins with a pen and paper.

But, as far as we’ve gotten,
there are still miles to go.

See, this upper hand keeps interfering.
It keeps slapping us across the face,
till the blood seeps through our teeth,
till we’ve hopped sixteen
rehabilitation centers
in eight months,
and till we’re back at mom’s front door
knocking for cash.

But we mustn’t stop there.

We must continue to write and we dream,
and we must continue crawling on our knees
carving poems into pavement,
because we took the hard route.

We took the revolutionary route,

because we are martyers, 
dying for our words
the way Jesus
should’ve died
for our freedom.