A System Must Have Balance Rio Mississippi

A System Must Have Balance

The nervous system It’s like our world today Because one wrong turn And your life could be cast astray Every nerve matters And a system Must Have balance Transferring information To maintain stabilization Neurons carry messages Just like circuitry Carrying a message From a button Through wires Walkin’ home Hearing gunfire People throwin’ rocks At a Black Lives Matter Sign Nervous system tryin’ to keep you sane Trying to keep you stable So many people just wanna Label you And the entire system Just like a tree Is pushing down on you The brown branches Reaching to the sky But one holds it down Because like the nervous system And a circuit Each part has a job

Carrying nutrients to each system Which are all needed for photosynthesis But one side of the tree gets too much And It collapses Or is cut down Even The spinal cord Couldn’t hold it up Because like everything in life A system must Have balance And every day Someone impoverished Is left untreated Left taking Too much for their Nervous systems to handle Maybe like Parkinson’s Left shaking Or Like Multiple sclerosis Seein’ a blur Or speaking with a slur But my point is In a system that is unbalanced The ones who are holding Up that tree Trying to keep it from falling Will be the ones Most unbalanced The most overlooked Because our system

Doesn’t Have balance So we gotta make it happen Gotta bring the change Gotta disengage That system of unbalance.

Rio Mississippi, Grade 7 Sanford Middle School, Minneapolis Teaching Artist, Frank Sentwali