anyone walking along the roads can see plants poking through the places where fragments of concrete have broken away; weeds stretch along the pavement, and grasses grow through the ridges between slabs of stone.  they grow when people want them dead and gone; they stand tall while others want to stomp them down.
how natural, standing up is, the way trees ***** themselves to their true love, the sun, how grasses grow in only one direction, how mountains point only one way.  at least nature understands the importance of that direction: upward.  the place of the stars, a long standing metaphor for aspiration and dreams.
so, if standing up is so natural, why  do we humans find it so hard to stand up for ourselves?
we manage to stand on our own two feet well enough, but do we stand tall?  no.
we slouch and bend and curve and hide; we mask our faces with hair and makeup, turn our backs and shrug our shoulders.  we cut each other down with words likes knives, chopping, chopping away our self-esteem and feeling of worth.  poisonous looks **** our outlook, so that the grass is dead on both sides and there's nowhere to turn.  instead of building ourselves up to be invincible stone, we crumble like sand castles that were too close to the tide.