There were the days, so many

when you took the brunt

of someone else's gouging tongue

the lash that gave no thought of sting,

or worse, measured it in the ring.

Resentments, insults showered out

the slipshod scoring of endless points

that demeaned your efforts,

wracked your joints,

jealous taunts that reached far back,

so far back that it seems

that history was moulded in a wound.

 

Yet, back you crept with an inner force

that rose inside you

anger perhaps, maintained, explained

and cast you for the finer things.

 

Some of us treated thus

would have spread the taint

like waves to take the likes of us

far out to sea, swept in again

on waves, on waves of misery

 

but what rained down

with the sparks of temper,

you cast aside and the thorny crown

caring not to take the blame

of being trapped, trapped in time

for someone else's wave of crime

and now, and now

can show the world you have a place

with no inherited sad disgrace.