Privilege

I don’t think I’ve ever felt
entitled to all the cards I’m dealt.
Whatever my circumstance
is more often than not left up to chance.

Yet here I am,
the victim and the beneficiary,
and somewhere in between
lies the truth of my entire being.

One who can be pushed down
before I even try to get up,
and still one who can do all too little
to grab ahold of all I want.

A state of success,
too often I’m told,
earned on merit alone,
but hearing that gets old.

Sure, I do all I can
to build on what the man has given me.
But I’d be lying if I said
I earn more because of this nation
than I do from a particular situation.

Now, that is not a self-critique.
I simply aim to speak
about how we don’t choose
the lives we’re born into.
And that hard work alone does not atone
for luck or lack there of.

Opportunities handed out
because I look or talk a certain way.
Someone else, better qualified,
may never see that light of day.

So I never take for granted all that I’ve been granted.
For, I try my best on my ladder to the sky.
But I must lift those whose step up
didn’t start quite so high.