Today

Today I am a bad writer
Today I lack motivation, confidence
muse
discipline
Today I do not deserve to be here
In a place where I can do so much
Where I am free to express ideas
Where I can create, write
build a nation
build a new world
Where opportunity knocks
with large, gnarled hands
aged with knowledge and experience
the lines in its skin full of stories to tell
past lives rich with detail
longing to live on in me
My hands are weak and deprived
Weighed down with sadness
low self-worth
and calluses caused from hard labour
instead of a pen
labour betrothed to me
from my ancestors
who don’t know any better
than to survive this way
I struggle to break free
with my pen in hand
to revel in the warmth
of opportunity’s large embrace
somehow
I will be set free