You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may **** me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Just 15 years, 2 months, and 18 days ago, we made a promise
A vow of unconditional love and devotion to each other
A pact, united as one, made to simply protect one another
Our memories are woven together,
Thread by thread and line by line
To crate a single human being
Made of the body and the mind
My soul is my immortal, heaven-sent and never whole
And my bones, my skin, my body— just a temporary home
This home has been broken, held up by the white beneath my skin
Mistreated by my soul’s selfish beating called sin
You have sealed up all the windows, and locked all the doors
You have trapped me inside of myself, creating a series of civil wars
This is a letter to you, my punching bag, my security blanket, my
       canvas, my betrayer
This is a letter to you
My body

A movement of the mouth, a gasp for air,
A mutter of sound, and two legs moving as a pair.
A thought occurred to us, just children, learning to control ourselves.
We are able to go on, now, speaking aloud what the story tells.
As a single being, united as one,
We are able to understand what we see,
We are able to dance, and sing, and run.
We are able to let the words crawl through our veins
Just to spill out of our hearts to cope with our own pain.
We are able to create,
We are able to live.
We, a body and a mind, are able.

We transform from child to a teenager,
As a single human being
Our souls change from a whole, to a one with a hole
Leaving a trench where our innocence had been.
The mind convinces itself that you, my body, is jailing me, innocent girl for a crime she had never committed.
The mind convinces you, that if you try to stand, every bone in your legs will shatter into a million pieces.
The mind convinces my eyes that the person I see in the mirror is an unknown face, string back at me.
The mind convinces itself and you that the only way to fill up this crater of demons inside; Is by torturing your beautiful skin and drowning the evil in every drop of blood, and every tear ever shed.
The mind convinces itself and you, my body, that there is no reason to be.
There is no reason,
To create
To dance,
To sing,
To run.
To live.

Time passes by, and the years go on,
We simply survive the life we are meant to live.
As one being, we venture through the valleys of hell,
My immortal being strives for the heaven it craves from the inside of this cell.
The mind imagines a place it has yet to find,
But our legs are unable to jump just that high.
So we envision a staircase.
Step by step we climb up, until they come to a stop—
We’ve fallen from grace.
Our bones, cracked, and all out of place
Our hearts, crushed under the weight,
Of our broken souls, ripped open and stripped of any hope,
Leaving us in the control of an evil fate.
We are irreversibly broken.
And we have no reason to be fixed.

In the back of our mind,
Even as the time has gone by,
I’ve thought about apologizing, but our mouth always responded with a sigh.
Now, I, eternal and never whole, realize that there has always been a doubt in my soul.
Maybe it is my fault.
I am sorry. I truly am.
I am sorry for taking you for granted when you took me as your own
I’m sorry for kicking you out when all you needed was a home.
I’m sorry for every time I stare at the mirror and never like what I see
Because you are content with me, and only me.
I’m sorry for telling you to shrink, shrink, shrink, when all you wanted to do was grow.
I’m sorry for concealing your light when all you waned was to show your natural glow
I’m sorry for not thanking you every time you healed my skin to seal and protect my soul, and I want you to know that you, and only you, can make me whole.
I finally realize that although I always hurt you,
We did make a promise.
We made a vow of unconditional love and devotion, and protection for one another.
A body with a mind, and a soul with a heart,
We, as a single human being, are able.
This is a letter to you, to my beautiful painting, my sweet salivation, and my armor through the fight, my torch when there is no light.
This is a letter to you,
My body.

What if I,
in artless youth,
had never heard that call to life?
Had never gazed upon that beacon
And found a world beyond my own?
I may have loved my ignorant prison,
cherished those gossamer walls of thought,
evaded that thirst for wretched freedom,
and left alone
those dank recesses,
content to slink away
existence upon existence.

Never would I have borne
the timid wings of aspiration---
a sudden quickening:
turning ambition,
turning desire,
turning identity.

Never would I
have kissed the sweet earth goodbye,
embraced the rush of wind and sky and soared
into the enthralling
the intoxicating
the cavernous--
Big Blue.

Ambition unbound!
How did it feel
to free the fatal sun-seared wax and flesh,
and witness plumed Promise plunge
down.
down.
down.
into the gaping sea
perhaps resurfacing on some unknown shore?

As I stare at the panels of the wall
Hidden behind layer on layer of concrete,
I know that they are strong.
They will hold me up, and never recede.

They are there to protect everything that I know.
My possessions. My life. My fears.
They, too, were once naked, and weak,
With simply panel upon panel, and tier upon tier.

Without the layers of concrete
Protecting its weak and hollow inside,
Each panel would crumble and crack,
Leaving behind ruins, that would simply subside,
To dust.

What if I broke them down?
What if I cracked each layer of stone,
One by one,
And let the panels break, standing alone?

Because then maybe you could finally see,
That these walls aren’t here to protect me,
But only to stop the light from shining
Onto the pain that is hiding,
On the other side of the concrete.