5.12.2009

Oppress Us.

The moon has a distance
Synonymous with my limits.
My dreams are farther
Than these visible stars
And I see the future reflecting in the water.
My blood is thicker than a lion's roar
And I speak with pain because I speak for those poor.
Poverty lacks a voice; Poverty lacks an image
And poverty lacks a choice.
My pen is mightier than their swords
Oppress us! I am a martyr for these words.
Let my crimson blood write scripture for them to follow
And if I die today, I'll be alive tomorrow.
Can a life truly be gone if it is forever remembered?
My flame started out as a single ember
With the name of a fighter.
Poverty will always be my igniter.


This poem is dated 5-27-08. I was a senior in high school, ignoring the lessons and losing myself within my own poetry. I have STACKS of folded paper with half-poems, single lines, scratched out lines, graffiti sketches and real masterpieces that dominated my mind while I was caged in the epitome of mediocrity that is Bellflower High School. The teachers never taught us about real world humanity, such as poverty. I was stuck learning a lesson that the teachers have been teaching for years without change (we read the same material as the class of '04 read). These fucking high schools out here don't allow us to be an INDIVIDUAL.

They CENSOR us from the real world as if we need to be sheltered. Often we ask why we need to take these bullshit classes and it's as if the teachers are programmed to reply "Because it's going to help in the real world." Fuck that! We're sitting in these crowded classrooms learning MANDATORY lessons that the state of California thinks we need to know when there are MILLIONS and MILLIONS of children out there who would die to learn how to read and write.

So I would sit in class, and focus on the matters that are most important to me. As I wrote (in the poem), no one is really taking a strong stand for those living in poverty, in our country and others. There are non-profit organizations no doubt, but is Reducing Poverty really a priority to those living above the middle class? There isn't a Twitter that sends followers updates on the people living in poverty. Poverty doesn't have a Myspace. The image of poverty is the unrecognized population as a whole.

In the first few lines, I say "My dreams are farther that these visible stars and I see the future reflecting in the water." What I mean is that, my dreams are beyond anything we can see; they are in fact unseen. I didn't say "my future", I said "the future" because if in fact no one is brave enough to fight for those who can't fight for their selves, it will be me; my reflection in the water.

I don't like seeing the Google pictures of poverty. So this will have to do, to help believe that the many ills of this world will be reduced.

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