You may write me down in history 
With your bitter, twisted lies, 
You may tread me in the very dirt 
But still, i rise 

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. 



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. 

 

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.

Skin and bone with sunken eyes,
The most beautiful I've ever seen
a girl like you to be.
Impossible, maybe, but for you
it is effortless,
In the way you seem to live your life.

Ashes cover your nails
That you've always done up so well,
Even when they've locked you in the jail cell
That you're all too familiar with.
I'd pay to meet the men who've hurt you.
To know the life you've lived.

To use my voice to tell the world,
"She's not who you think she is!"
You put on quite the show, I've got to say
For those who don't bother to give a second glance
At the girl who drinks her life away.

How are you so happy, young girl,
The one you say no one wanted,
The one that the kids taunted
For hiking up your skirt to the gentlemen
Who were willing to give you a pretty penny?

Look at your skin, bruised and battered,
That you love to show off to the world.
And to smile into the eyes of the lover
Who used you so blatantly,
Is the greatest form of control I've ever seen
In a life that is run by chaos.

Judgmental they are, I tell you
But I see your strength in you
And a little bit of crazy too.
But don't we all go a little mad once in a while?
I'd be a liar to say I'm not intrigued
In the journey you've taken to get here,
And the story that waits to be written.

Wear your name proud,
You will never be forgotten.