Still Standing

I once saw a four year old on crutches he’s managed to use pretty effectively he didn’t look invalid. (He’s not the boy in this picture.) This poem is for him, if he would take a chance on life. I’m believing he would. This is also for me. April 16’s my birthday.

I feel my tongue loosen like a caged bird set free

As I taste the first fruits of enchanted poetry.

Indulge me for a sec., will ya? If you got the time.

Let me transport you on the train of my rhyme.

Nudge of inspiration breaks my paralysis,

Melting my numbness, she lifts me above controversies.

Forgive me if I dally a little too close to the lip of excess

But some things get in your system and set you off on a tangent.

Nothing succeeds like success

I should know. I’m nothing if not a duty pageant.

I am the drowning man clutching at a straw;

I am the one who’s lost everything but what?

I’m still standing.

I am neck-deep in water but I still got that one straw

I take the tiger by the tail and hang on.

People often wonder where my strength lies

Often surprised how I rode the lows to get to my highs.

I try to make them see I’m no empty vessel

Their faces tell they wouldn’t believe me if this was the gospel.

I am walking upwind

The point, I’d have you note, is I’m walking.

I have parted the storm clouds,

And I’ve seen the silver lining.

I pledge allegiance to hope, here and now

To keep coming every time I fall. Even when I’m crying

I’m still standing.

There’s a dream so real you can reach out and touch it.

I believe this like I believe in the certainty of tides and sunrise.

I’ve roamed the pits so long my fears became shallow,

And my fascination with death shrunk to a shadow.

I am the voice of one yelling from the hardpan;

I am the strength of a dying, desperate man.

I put up with the sting of rejection;

Stuck out beneath the weight as I battled depression.

For several years, I braced amazing disgrace;

I’ve fallen down time and time and time again.

While I may not be your prototype testimony,

My story must have sprouted a tumor of memory.

Still stomping . . .

Still counting . . .

Still standing.

Akpan

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