What if I never learned how to read and write?
How different right now would be my life?
How different would my daily interactions be?
What would happen to my pure spirit if I ran across a proud and learned person and I couldn't properly pronounce and spell the things I speak?
Would that person talk about me or teach me?
Would they take the time out and try to reach me?
What if I made F's in school instead of A's?
Would the pretty girls still like me?
Would they still wave?
Would they still crave?
Would they still call me the sunshine of dark days?
Would they still want to be my girlfriends if I couldn't read the love letters that they sent, that said, from this day forward can we date?
What would happen if I couldn't relate because I couldn't understand the message that was being conveyed?
Would My life be delayed and altered in a major way?
What if I couldn't read my Bible and my Qur'an?
Does that mean that I'll miss some important guidance?
Does that mean for me, that blessings can't be sent down to me?
Without comprehension how would I be able to pray?
Would my tears talk to God for me as they run down my face?
Would I produce enough tears to form a miniature lake, that would purify my literacy just to thank God for breath and to ask God for wisdom, knowledge, and understanding?
If I was illiterate how different would my thoughts be?
Would I still have enough confidence in myself to dare approach a Queen?
Would I even call myself a King?
Would I even know how to properly go to the store and ask someone for assistance with this thing called a ring?
How would I even get there if someone only gave me directions and a book?
Where would I even begin to look?
Would I still find the street?
Would I keep going or just lay hopeless and remain silent in my speech?
Would I even be treated like the head, or would I be treated bare like the soles of feet that gets covered up 98% of the time?
Would I even have friends if I was dumb as a doorknob?
Would that girl up the street look down on me and she just got a new nose job?
But before that she was the freak on the block that gave all the guys blow jobs.
Of course not me, because I was the dummy that couldn't read and was constantly teased.
But I could perceive and see that she was a wrongly guided freak,
she could read and write well,
but she suffered with low self esteem, so she walked around in hell.
She could have asked anyone for help and they would've understood her.
Why wasn't I blessed with her intellect?
I always wanted to be the best at whatever, but I just didn't know where to begin.
My name is Grace And Mercy, it's probably the only thing that I could read and write with confidence.
Melanated people have always beaten the odds, just to survive because we were systematically deprived of being a human being.
Qadar Dwon'