The Ant Who Never Gave Up

It’s September 3rd, 3:30 pm, I’m sitting in my cell, listening to 42 Dugg and reading “The Mamba Mentality”. No lie, I feel weak right now. Like how much more fight do I have left? Physically, I feel strong, with room to grow. Emotionally I’m stoic, a walking dichotomy, learning daily to juggle my empathetic nature with my life’s a B**ch, deal with it attitude. Mentally, I’m in a different space, I just have that feeling of despair in the pit of my stomach that I can’t shake. Another guy died in here that I knew yesterday. I found out at 8 this morning, that makes 7 in the last year. I’m just ready to go. Tired of the violence, tired of hearing war stories, the sneak dissing, the gossip, the woe is me “alllllathat.”  It’s draining to a person who is usually extremely positive. As I’m sitting here, trying to pull myself back up, I see an ant, dragging across the floor (He’s by himself, no I don’t have ants). He’s injured, idk what from, doesn’t really matter. I press down on top of the lil’ homie with my thumb, to take him out of his misery, but as I lift back up, he’s still kickin’. So, I put him between my index finger and thumb til’ I feel that all too familiar *crunch*. I keep him in between my fingers for like 5 minutes because he tricked me last time and somebody came to talk to me before I could throw the lil’ guy away. After a while, I separate my fingers and see that this lil’ thing is still kicking. After 5 minutes of pressure. From somebody 1000x his size. Mind Blown. He’s determined to reach whatever destination or goal he’s set out to reach. No quit. Probably scared, yet still resilient. They say, “Heart of a lion” but the lion is already bigger and stronger than everybody, this ant is tiny, weak in many ways, yet stronger than the lion could ever be. The ant possesses inner strength, and resolve. In my weakness, there are unimaginable amounts of strength and determination. If this little ant isn’t giving up, how could I? “Thanking God for all my setbacks, cause he’s the reason I’m able to get back”.