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.

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

i am like a seed

people plant me into their little pots
constructed little plots
under control under their hands

they will always try to make me bloom
into a flower, into a little plant
under control under their hands

they would think that I am just a little bonsai
put a wire there, and i'll bloom
exactly the way they want me to

but I am tired of that
under control under their hands

i don't want to be tended, waiting
for me to bloom into what they expect me to
I am my own, and I don't need them to that, anymore

my body will grow, and they will see
i am not their plant,
i am not theirs

i don't want to be tended
if only the hands were tender
even with love

but then, they drench me
with words
that i love, and fall for

i am tired, but still
am just a seed

i am no tree, i am powerless

so place me into your ***
control me under a plot

and i'd will always
always go towards the sun

my sun

Everything I thought I'd ever be
Everything I thought I'd ever do
Means nothing to me,
Compared to a reality with you.