They tell us to be proud.
Of streets paved with cracked promises, skies clouded by the smoke of dreams burned down.
But I ask: proud of what?

You say the community is us, But is it? Or is it the way our voices get muffled, shouting underwater while they smile, we’re supposed to be grateful for the weight pressing us down. The leaders — they wear their pride like armor, it’s rusted, dented with the blows they didn’t take. They tell you it’s tradition to fall in line, they stand tall on our backs.

Are you proud of that?

See, I don’t wear pride on my sleeve, when it was stitched by hands too scared to reach for something better. Not when the roots of this place are poisoned, they ask me to keep watering the tree. Community, they say.
It’s home.
But home shouldn’t feel like a cage, turn its key in my soul every time I try to speak truth. Gator never been about that, never been about playing no shit.

Where’s the pride in silence?
In the blinders we wear, past broken windows that don’t reflect who we are —maybe they do,
Maybe they reflect who we’re scared to become.

And I’m supposed to wave that flag? Sing that anthem with my chest puffed out, Like I haven’t tasted the salt of this earth? Nah, I’ll plant my feet in the soil they forgot about, let the real roots grow, untamed, uncared for, but still alive. I’ll take pride in the voices they tried to bury.

Because community isn’t what they tell you to be proud of, It’s what you fight to protect. And I’m done pretending that wearing pride like a mask is the same as being free.

How am I not proud?
Let me ask you this—How are you not ashamed?
Ashamed to stand in the hollow shadow, a world you helped build, brick by poisoned brick. A world where silence is louder than screams, your comfort sits on the backs of the forgotten.

I am ashamed for you.
For the way you wear that mask of pride, Smiling, while your hands tremble under the weight Of everything you refuse to see. When was the last time you looked past your reflection, saw the cracks in the mirror? You’ve smoothed over every jagged edge, Pretended the fissures don’t cut deep.
But I see you.
I see the fear hiding in your pride, fear so ancient it whispers “Don’t rock the boat, don’t stir the dust.”

But I will rock it.
I’ll turn your world upside down, you should be ashamed.
You should be haunted by the way you close your eyes, and pray, like thats enough while the walls of your community crumble.
Do you feel the tremors yet?
Or are you still too busy convincing yourself that everything’s fine? I am ashamed, because I stand in the rubble, because you’re still pretending the structure holds.

You call it pride, I call it cowardice.
It’s the easy path, the one paved with ignorance, every step keeps you just far enough from the truth (cowards don’t have to look at it.)
But I will show you—I’ll show you in all the ways I know will bug you.
I’ll make you squirm in your own skin, Make you question every smug word you ever said About loyalty and pride.

You should be ashamed.
And maybe one day you will be.
When you stop looking & see the mirror and seeing yourself
As the hero of the story.
When you start seeing the dust you’ve let settle,
The blood on your hands,
And the lie that pride was ever yours to begin with.