Still I Rise

Still I Rise

BY MAYA ANGELOU (Modified by The Liteman T)

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 self-assertive poise (yet without any safe-bursting bank account) 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 confidence in God’s faithfulness and mercy offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my inexplicable survival and renewal of strength, 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

I might have fallen six times, yes … seven, in dark transients

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the divinely impacted gifts that I am endowed with

I am the dream and the hope of the ignorant and unlearned.

I am like the eagle who continually renews strength 

as spoken by Prophet Isaiah of old…

I rise

I rise

I rise

Glory to God… I rise in Jesus name, amen!