Born from childhood days,
The street is my domain.
Surviving the minutes and hours
Of hardships and pain.
They tell me I know nothing
When in truth I know more than I do say.
Life is my battle,
The street is my terrain,
The heart, it beats with majestic force--
The weapon I do claim.

I am a soldier--
Fighting the stereotypes
And striving past low expectations.
Growing up in a place
Where our art is their vandilism--
Our music and dance, in their eyes,
Nothing more than sexual references.
A child of alcohol, drugs, and wasting away.
Nothing more than a piece of garbage,
I am nothing-- or at least thats what they say.

I am a soldier--
The one who lives and tries to survive.
Branded and labeled--
A piece of property.
They don't see me, don't trully see me.
They only see their charts of numbers and negotiations,
They never look straight at my face!
To them I am simply a bother,
Other times a number.
Or what shall I say?

I am a soldier--
Yes I argue and complain,
But I was born to defend
The world no one wishes to mend!
For I, like them, have been casted aside.
Somehow fallen under the branch
Of untouchables and trash.
But I have experienced things they'll never see.
For I have lived through poverty and hunger
But still everyday I survive!

I am a soldier--
I shouldn't exist.
Born from corruption and similar things,
I have taken it upon me the need to live.
Something that was once a given right
Is now less than anything.
I do not know what I ever did
To have their eyes look down at me!
How is it a fault being born into a land
Of food stamps and poverty?

I am a human--
Shouldn't that mean I exist?
I have feelings, a family, and needs.
Just because I don't see what you do see
Or do the things that you can do,
That doesn't mean I am a criminal or a thing.
The soldier in me shouldn't live,
The world shouldn't be this way.
But it is.
And for that and every tainted thing...
I Am A Soldier.