Translator: Anthony Aguilar Reviewer: Chryssa Takahashi
One. An object in motion tends to stay in motion.
Our blood moves 11,806 miles each day.
Braving 60,000 miles of circulation
to cause the rise and fall of your chest in the morning.
You blink 23,040 times while the Earth travels 1.6 million miles.
Movement is not limited to your awareness.
The universe will continue to move without your consent.
Your body will live without your permission.
Your blood will circulate.
Breathe.
Two. Force equals mass times acceleration.
A 150 gram bullet traveling at 2,000 feet per second
exerts 3,032 pounds per square inch
over one one-thousandth of a second upon impact.
February 21st, 1965, 21 bullets pierced flesh in a Manhattan ballroom.
Malcolm X hits the Earth with enough force to raise a nation of fists.
The mass of a bullet times the acceleration needed to end a life
equals the force required to resurrect a broken spirit.
The masses will continue to accelerate.
Three. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Stillness does not equal weakness.
Size and stature can be deceiving.
A hummingbird's wings vibrate 68 times per second just to be still.
Have you ever seen a hummingbird move without purpose?
December 1st, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move from her seat.
Her heart a frenzied flutter of wings.
The collection of steps to the Washington Monument in her chest
marched without moving an inch.
Staying stationary sent a ripple through America.
A hummingbird hovering near the front of a Montgomery bus.
Four. Laws are meant to be broken.
We're not content with the confinements of science.
We have begun to make our own laws.
One. The energy of regret is greater than the energy of progress.
A young boy holds his bloody mouth at a bus stop,
after I watched his size crumble in a fight that I could've stopped.
The hummingbird in my chest rode that bus home without flight.
Two. We will never evolve if we fear the unknown.
On a Sunday in 2006, I walked into a poetry slam wide-eyed and unaware,
realizing that some collisions are entirely beyond the scope of physics.
that ignorance had kept me quiet for far too long.
Three. We will always succumb to the gravity of truth.
On an evening in spring, I confessed deceit to my beloved,
the weight of my betrayal exploding in nuclear fission,
splitting our bond into singularity.
Four. Selfishness does not exist in a vacuum.
On a Tuesday in April, the slurs of middle-school children are the bullets
that turn my ears into a Manhattan ballroom.
I keep my fists from making impact with his face as a promise
that my resistance was a much more ruthless reaction.
Five. Inertia, like helplessness, is a myth.
For 156 seconds we have not moved from this stage.
You have not moved from your seats.
But our hearts have beat 223 times.
Your blood has traveled 189 feet.
You have inhaled 188 liters of air.
The Earth has spun 52 miles.
We are moving, even if we choose not to.
When we think we are still, we are always in motion.
It takes 54 muscles to stand.
Use the momentum of your existence to breathe, blink, throw,
write, shine, love, dance, fight, march, speak.
It takes 72 muscles to speak.
What will you use them for?
(Applause)