Glad to Be Here

My name is Selena Victoria Shannon and

I am glad to be here.

I am glad to be here.

I am glad to be here.

Now that’s a phrase I don’t usually hear.

Especially not within the past year.

But let me cheer without fear,

I am glad to be here.

You see, I see a lot of things.

Besides you kings and queens,

I see dreams.

But I ain’t no Martin Luther King.

Now you let that ring.

I ain’t tryna be King,

But like he said (in the only part of the speech they taught you),

“I still have a dream.”

But unlike King, sorry, I don’t speak so eloquently.

I’m very straight to the point and ‘bout relevancy.

I irrevocably say that I’m not about delicacy.

But I’ll say what I dream, definitely.

I have a dream that one day black people will stop dreamin’!

Stop weepin’.

Stop reelin’.

Stop being stuck in your feelings.

Y'all act like this is the first meeting.

The first generation in search of meaning.

The first beating.

The first black person to stop breathing.

Each generation starts speaking.

They start preaching.

They start meeting.

And what comes next, they start dreaming.

But after they leave that meeting,

they fall into appeasing, deceiving and believing.

Cause y'all keep dreamin’ while they scheming.

And I’m sitting here thinking what a dream they dreamin’.

But that’s my dream for y'all

My dream for myself has is a different call

I’m out here to appall,

because who knows how long until I fall.

I certainly do not have the time to bear the burdens of the past.

I certainly do not have the time to do what I am asked.

I certainly am not the one to be typecast

because others opinions will be bypassed.

I’m not the one to be politically correct.

Not the one to be checked.

No need to reflect or dissect

because I’m here to effect.

Effect change and not just sit at a meeting.

Contemplating my people’s mistreating

like perfecting our greeting is gonna stop the beatings.

And you know they must really care about what what we’re eating.

I don’t like wasting time

because I know too soon my funeral bell will chime.

When you talk about lifetime,

I don’t have the free time to inspect my short climb.

So every day is a prime time

And not just in my time.

But, as a black person your chances of being the next victim of a crime is big time.

But y'all acting like it’s nap time.

Asleep and dreamin’ about the past.

Dreamin’ about the future’s green grass.

I ain’t sorry about all this sass.

But you letting TODAY, our current time, pass.

But it’s cool, keep on dreamin’.

Keep on meeting.

Keep on discussing all them feelings

cause you know one day you’ll find the meaning.

But today I’m doing something.

I ain’t waiting til the next bullet is oncoming.

Cause I can already hear it humming.

It will always be drumming.

It did then.

It will again.

It is a pain that came with our birthdays.

And will sustain for all of our days.

But you know what?

My name is Selena Victoria Shannon.

And I’m glad to be here, today.