Still I Rise

How you feelin', Baby Boo?

Blue, Daddy. Your baby's feeling blue.

I sit in stillness for a long time. Hoping my mind will learn my body's lesson. I sit in silence for a long time, hoping that my soul will at least try and pretend. The weekend of a movie release...damn brother. Good God damn.

There are so many things that I could say, that I should say, and that I really really want to say. But all of them are choked amidst the viscera of my thoughts scattered like gravel in my throat. I feel as if some one's roasting my dreams like marshmallows at the back of my mouth. I drink coffee after coffee, but the smoke keeps coming out.

But my heart's always hopeful, ever optimistic. He always thinks the Heaven's are going to sing my name like a paean, and the stars dance me down a red carpet. Every single time. God, I love him for that. We take hits, we get bloodied, but he never lets me lose that pizazz in my two-step. We're ready man, dancing in the center of the ring. Rumble young man, rumble. Life's a trip, you know you're gonna stumble. Shake off the dust, laugh never grumble. Remember, you're still a lion in anybody's jungle.

This morning I felt blue. Like dark, heavy jazz, played by men with eyes that matched the cherry of their cigarettes. Like how a raven feels watching all the other birds start flying south without saying goodbye. I felt blue. Down in the muddy water, with the Moon refusing to shine. Down at the bottom of that last bottle of wine.

All it took was a couple of smiles from a particular girl. Smiles I hung on her lips for her, even as she was feeling a little blue, too. And the smiles I smiled in return, and a great cup of coffee. And that new Cee-Lo Green album playing shuffled in with the new Kanye West album as I cruised back home on Bombay City streets that must have been cleared for me, in the middle of a Saturday.

And look at me now. Look at me now. Flying up higher than the ninth cloud. Wrapped up close, dancing a merengue with the dark blue of the night sky. I've got my pen acting like it's got my Muse on speed dial. Every word written is another quiet breath towards achieving oneness. I can get lost on any street in any city in any world and still find my way home without any kind of compass. Still I rise even as the fear and the demons swell, and every minute is the perfect cell in a metal hell. Still I rise up on surging, golden wings above an evening tide. At least I'll be able to say I went in there swinging, before I died.

Still I rise.