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Climbing Life
Life ain't no crystal staircase, chil'
No banister to offer a steady grip.
More like a rough wooden ladder,
Leaving splinters in your palms,
Grit under your nails
And dirt on your hands.
Climbing that ladder,
Trying to reach the next rung,
Stretching your arms to the limit,
Struggling to pull yourself up to the next level.
Climbing is easy, you might say.
Just a matter of lifting your limbs, reaching up.
Sure, I say, but what if you're weighted?
Burdens that society has hung on your feet, your shoulders, your
arms.
And the burden that is society shackled around your
neck.
Not so easy now, is it?
Lose your grip and you fall back.
Down to the first rung, where all the rats dwell,
Scrabbling wildly for a purchase, you haul yourself back up
To the middle, along with the others trying to reach the top.
Looking up, you see the ones that have made it, sitting like
kings on the uppermost rungs.
And people wish to be there.
No place to stop.
Just you, hanging on that ladder
With the rest.
Life ain't no crystal staircase, chil'
More like a rough wooden ladder
Which all of us climb.
I know. I've been there.