More Than the Past

Yesterday was black and white, today we’re lost in gray,

Different kinds of suffering, still fighting through the day.

The world keeps moving forward, but the scars are staying near,

We’re all just trying to find some hope beneath the fear.

Back then, black people chained, fighting just to live,

While the rich took everything, had nothing left to give.

Mothers watched their children torn away from their embrace,

While freedom was a dream they weren’t allowed to chase.

Generations carried pain that history can’t erase,

People robbed of their humanity because of their race.

They fought so we could have a chance to live a different life,

So why are we still judging souls by color, wealth, and pride?

We came from black and white, now we’re drowning in the gray,

Fighting with our own minds just to make it through the day.

From the chains of yesterday to the demons we fight now,

We’re searching for a little peace in a world that wears us down.

I won’t let the past decide the person I become,

Won’t let society tell me where I belong.

We can break the cycle, choose a different way,

The past may shape our story, but it doesn’t get the final say.

Now depression hides behind the smiles we wear,

People fighting wars inside while pretending not to care.

Some escape the violence, some were raised inside the pain,

Some are trying to heal while getting caught up in the same.

Society demands perfection, then condemns you when you fall,

Makes you feel like you’re a nobody if you don’t have it all.

But your trauma isn’t destiny, your past is not your name,

You can stop the hurt from spreading; you don’t have to pass the pain.

You’re not the hate they taught you,

Not the hurt you had to know.

You can be the one who breaks the chain

And gives the next generation hope.

We came from black and white, now we’re painting something new,

Turning all the pain we carry into something we can use.

We can’t change where we came from, but we choose where we will go,

We can plant a little kindness where the world once let hate grow.

I won’t let the past define me, I won’t live society’s lies,

We’re more than our beginnings, more than what the world decides.

The past explains the scars, but it doesn’t write the end,

We’re more than what we’ve been through—we can choose to start again.

Yesterday left scars, tomorrow’s ours to make,

We can turn the hurt to healing, change the choices that we make.

The past may be the story of the world we came to know…

But we decide what happens next, and where our future goes.