“Did you hear about the rose that grew
from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature’s law is wrong it
learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping it’s dreams,
it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
when no one else ever cared.” – Tupac Shakur, “The Rose That Grew From Concrete”
As a formerly incarcerated person, this poem gives me life and is the inspiration for The Tattered Rose. In a sense, we are all just tattered roses. Meaning, no one is perfect, but we are all still beautiful.
On the other hand, this poem is very specific to those people who society deems as “undesirable,” “irredeemable,” or “irreconcilably deviated from a peaceful and productive existence in a community.” We are the “others” who the world never fully forgives.
While the the branding iron of society casts us away from fertile gardens, we push through the cracks of our would-be demise.
To Tattered Roses everywhere: Forget the nay-sayers; I see your petals. Yes they are scratched. Yes, your stem is bent and cracked. Yes, your leaves are broken. BUT . . . you are a rose who grew from concrete.
Tattered Rose 
A Personal Prayer of Repentance:
“This is my confession, that in my righteous desire to reject the anti-Christianity of conservative white evangelicalism (and even some “liberalism” that had no sense of urgency for the liberation of Oppressed Peoples), I became arrogant and self-righteous in my demeanor towards my God who instilled in me the only faith that could rescue me from the horrors of heroin and crack addiction.”
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Fuck you propaganda queen im going to push to get you fucking charged for your lying post about the non existent shooting in Baltimore you fucking piece of racist shit.
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lol, James. Amazingly, I haven’t been charged for offending your racist sensibilities. Keep trying tho bud!
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There is another way of looking at this. It comes from Buddhism…a symbol of the lotus flower. It is used because it blooms in muddy water. It represents our life… At the moment it blooms it also seeds at the same time representing the concept of cause and effect. Whatever you choose to do, what ever action you take as your life swirls around you, the effect of the cause you created has already been established. That flower that blooms from the sidewalk, you, no matter where you are, you have choices that only you can make.
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