I wasn’t born yesterday, I was just born working class

Don’t mistake my silence for softness.

I grew up watching people

swallow their rage

so the gas stayed on.

We didn’t have time for theories.

We had time-and-a-half

if we were lucky,

and a back that gave out before the pension came.

I wasn’t raised on clean hands and clean exits.

I was raised on cracked knuckles,

on side jobs,

on food that stretched

and nerves that didn’t.

I learned to read the room

before I learned to read.

Knew how to make myself small

before I knew what power meant.

Because power

was something other people had.

You talk about resilience

like it’s a certificate.

Ours came with broken sleep

and bruised dignity.

We kept going, not because it was noble—

but because no one was coming.

So don’t tell me to calm down.

Don’t tell me to speak gently.

Don’t tell me I’m too angry

when all I’ve done

is survive the systems

you keep pretending can be fixed

with a taskforce and a timeline.

I wasn’t born yesterday.

I just came from a world

you keep overlooking.

A world where care isn’t a buzzword,

it’s a backbreaking, unpaid,

unthanked act of staying.

I wasn’t born yesterday.

I was just born

working class.

And I’m not going anywhere.