Human Nature
By SAT
Every day I struggle and ask are we fighting for a cause or just because.
Ain’t no sense in raising your fist if you don’t even know what you’re fighting for.
But I’m scared to put my hands down to keep from getting hit in the face.
I won’t just brace up against anything, but I refuse to turn the other cheek.
There’s a very thin line between caution and paranoia,
but I’m not gonna keep looking over my shoulder
and I won’t keep peeking out the blinds.
Outside of my windows there’s someone peeking inside.
I keep telling myself to pay attention and stay focused.
I can’t afford to lose my mind; my heritage gives me pride.
Cause my ancestors died for me to live.
I’m equipped with a mustard seed that moves mountains and I’ll prove happiness is priceless.
To be confused will cost you to become self-righteous and self-centered.
My feet are cemented in the streets.
A product of the fiend my mother was and she was never there…but my father was?
And that’s a flipside of the black family portrait.
We are depicted amongst society as failures.
We’ve inherited hell on earth cause heaven ain’t within crumbs distance.
Unless, I put my brothers and sisters on my shoulders to get closer to grab the ribbon in the sky.
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I was moved by the optimism in your poem. I see your struggles, challenges, and hardships, and yet the hope and faith emerges from the sea of difficulties and rises like the sun over a stormy sea and scatters brilliant light over the tips of crashing waves. You have an important voice and your poem is full of emotion. Thank you for sharing it with us. You are not forgotten! Please write more poems. I hope that you can continue to share your optimism with those around you. I loved the closing line, “Unless, I put my brothers and sisters on my shoulders to get closer to grab the ribbon in the sky.” That’s right. We must all help each other.
Hi SAT,
Great poem about the difficulties of being a black person in America. I like how you used imagery to describe the fear and confusion that comes from living in a society that is frequently hostile and oppressive to black people. When you say it makes no sense to raise our fists to fight if we don’t know what the cause is, you’re right.
It’s so sad that, despite our ancestors efforts to achieve equality between the black and white races, racism persists.
However, I like how you end the poem by saying that one must carry one’s brothers and sisters on one’s shoulders in order to reach for the ribbon in the sky, which connotes striving for a better life.