New poem – “greater than (or) equal to”

I was born the year
our country celebrated its 200th birthday.
Less than a decade
from Martin Luther King Jr.’s assasination,
113 years after the emancipation proclimation.

Here’s a bicentennial baby
obsessed with numbers,
released from his mother’s womb
into a wounded society.
He opened his eyes to a binary world
where 0’s and 1’s are doing what they can,
trying not to feel
less than.

Some people are unable
to process this equation –
they focus on division
and walk 90 degrees above the ground,
forcing you to believe their angle
is always right,
using money as the height of their worth,
never coming down for the common man,
because they feel
greater than.

Dear sexism,
ageism,
racism,
homophobia,
capitalism,
I am subtracting you
from my memomry’s muscle.

I am an adult now,
and I am tired of diversity being divisive,
as the system allows us
to shake its hand,
while pulling us deep into quicksand.

I am trying to reach higher ground
instead of feeling
less than.