"Pride": A Spoken Word #WorthyVideo Post

Hey, #worthyreaders! I hope you're doing well.

In case you don't know, I've been doing my Spoken Word #WorthyVideo series, sharing one poem from each section of my poetry chapbook. It's called Rise in Love: A Poetry Chapbook (Revised Edition). You can find it on Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, Nook, and Scribd.

I've been doing this hoping to spread some inspiration and hope during this difficult time. It started with me doing that for myself, but I thought I'd also do it for you.

There are five sections - You, Them, Life, God, and Me - celebrating different kinds of love. The first video I did was "Fish, Cheese, and Forty-Two," which is from the Life section. Then the second time I did "Senses" from the God section. Last time, I did "Self-Care" from the Me section. Today I'm sharing "Pride" and that's from the You section.

I wrote this poem for someone special in my life who'd gone through a lot that was just not the norm. He struggled with his self-esteem because of society's expectations. I wanted to show him that there's more to him than that and that he should just be who he is.

I think we're all struggling with that right now because of COVID-19. We're losing our jobs. We're having to study from home. We're losing our coping strategies because we can't go out to be with our friends.

We need to survive. Yes, true. We do need to survive, but we also need to be kind to ourselves. At some point, we need to live again. And it's okay if that's at our own pace and now what the government says, like with all the states opening up at different times.

Anyway, this is getting too opinionated! Let me, without further ado, share "Pride" from the You section:

Please don't think that

my pride in you comes

from the generic milestones

society expects

just because you're a man.

Get a job! Go to school!

Make money. Have a family.

Provide.

Darling, my pride comes

from how you survive!

How life can throw

whatever it wants at you

and where most people would run,

you see a game of catch

to test your strength for fun. (Rivera, 2020)

That's it for today! Make sure to leave comments. Let me know what you think. Share, like, follow, subscribe @SelysRivera. You can find me on Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram - I finally got one - and Twitter.

Stay worthy, guys!

References

Rivera, S. (2020). Rise in Love: A Poetry Chapbook (Revised Edition). Worth a Read Too, LLC.