Poetry, Part 1: Do I still have a voice?

Recently I have been watching a show on HBO called “Brave New Voices” it is a powerful show that focus’s on teenagers participating in Slam Poetry. These kids come from various backgrounds from the ghetto’s of New York to the relatively well off world of San Fran. They all have stories that make me shake my head and a tear to leak from my eye. From a kid who’s father left him at an early age only to run into him when buying some soda in a convenient store…and the father didn’t even acknowledge him. Another story involves a young lady with a blood related sickness and she struggled through this debilitating disease to still perform her poetry. These kids all have one thing in common. They have a voice. They have strong opinions and activist ideas born of poverty, strife and struggle. I have none of these!

I didn’t grow up in the hood, the barrio, or the ghetto. I know my mother and my father and both were active in my life from day one. I graduated high school, I tried the college thing and yet I’m still lost. I’ve never been mugged, I’ve not had disease or been abused. I’ve not been homeless or kicked out. I live in the perfect world, right? I have children, I’ve been married for 16 years and I’m 36. I am rapidly outgrowing my teenage angst and my anger at the world has been blunted by to many years of being beaten down by the Man. The system has drug me over the coals and left my soul worn and withered. My voice has gone horse from screaming obscenities at a government who gives two shits about me, my house or my people.

Did I mention that I’m white? And Male?

Yep that’s right I’m supposed to have it all! I am the picture of success the white devil riding the coat tails of the minority. Eating the food they’ve picked, going to the restaurants they clean and driving my gas guzzling SUV they’ve built. I’ve killed, I’ve maimed, I’ve ruined lives and taken nations away from people. I’ve driven people to drink and suppressed the voice of others. I am the root of all evil in the world. I should repay, apologize and grovel before the feet of those my people have destroyed.

In the darkness at the end of the day though I just sit humbly in the corner watching myself grow old. Seeing my imaginative spark dying a slow painful death. Sucked under by bills, children and a mortgage. I want to be free and to fly. I want to shout at the rooftops and proclaim my place in the world. Yet I sit back and I wonder….do I still have a voice? Can I write the poetry these kids have written? Once I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. My angst, my anger and my passion fed the words that spilled onto the screen. My fingers flying over the keyboard like lightening cast down from the Gods; this was my world. Then came children and responsibility. Happiness ensued and passion died. My angst has dwindled to defeatism and I exist. To old to embrace the youth and to young to embrace the death that is inevitable.

I want a voice. I want to speak and to shout and to write but all too often my mind is blank and I my own private fear gives way to stark panic; Have I lost my voice?