Love and Resistance, 

I am asked to stand up straight in a rather crooked room an Alice in Wonderland reference is what you naturally assume
yet I encourage you to delve far past your surface imagination
a journey to liberation, self-actualization, the past of the ancients,
dehumanization, satisfied with society's sense of humanity left
me in a deep place of complacence

I am told to stand upright although you have cut off my legs
you shoveled dirt upon open graves although I persistently shout
I am not dead!
To survive we must love and resist at the same damn time;
elevation on their righteous edification
Stay awake, Malcolm x, by any means necessary,
I possess not the slightest aversion to ridin’ for mine.

I am expected to be prim and proper and act like a lady
consequently I paint my face and put my curves on display therefore pay me
but that paper won't truly save me, because I am expected to
thrive in a society that may actually hate me yet I will
strive for well-deserved recognition, refusing to assimilate, pardon me
if that is what you were wishin’ for I am made of roses adorned
with thorns, I am a taurus hot-blooded woman, and if you provoke a bull,
you'll receive the horns.

yet we love and resist for that is the only way to survive
remember, I told you to love and resist and if for that I meet an untimely demise
like the strong warrior women before me, still I rise.