How Do You Measure My Worth?

Measure by Lady Teabird

How would you measure my life?
Like you measure my weight?
The strength of my voice?
The steel to my spine?
The tears frozen on the edge of my eyelids?
The ones that you forbid
The tremor to my lip?
Bloody from the effort it takes to not let sound slip
Sometimes I feel as if my body’s a landing strip for the old, broken, and forgotten
The oppressed, depressed, and misbegotten

I have a claim on life
Yes I do
I have a claim on life
Yes I do
I have a claim on me
I have a claim in who I get to be

I’m no longer afraid of my own absence
I’m able to appreciate my presence in the small moments

Those that are overlooked
And those that are brushed off because they do not blaze
It’s in them that I am being raised to handle greater prizes

I have a claim on life
Yes I do
I have a claim on life
Yes I do
I have a claim on me
I have a claim in who I get to be

Don’t get caught up in the commotion
Your attention should be right here and right now
Let’s dance till our feet wear out the carpet
Don’t stop to detect the smoke
Let the fire persist
Our seconds here are no joke
Take your attention off the forever circulating train
It’s too mundane
It will distract you from those moments
Some of which may not be around
when you turn to look back again

We can sashay as we wish
Or watch our failures on replay
It’s up to you how this day ends
Don’t let anything take that power away
Especially yourself
The dictator that dictates himself

I’ve lived in two rivers at once and not stepped out of either one
Don’t make my mistakes
I made them so you didn’t have to
I learned so I could teach you
I burned so you could rise from my ashes
I am, so that you can be

I have a claim on life
Yes I do
I have a claim on life
Yes I do
I have a claim on me
I have a claim in who I get to be