What a funny word it is
As if said by a child
Bringing back all I’ve lost
And the lives I’ve left behind

reading a book,

felt like conversation,

with thounsands,

who can relate.

Crack the whip again, make me see the cultural defeat.
And as I breathe help me understand.  Why, within my shaking hands.
I can feel the relapse of my bated breath, at this point I don’t know what’s left.
My screams are nothing. Even as my blood within the soil says something.
It teaches a powerful lesson. That even as centuries progress slavery is still a weapon.
The pain I feel never delays, doesn’t even fade away. Because as I retie my shirt, it’s still stained within my hurt. They look at me indifferent. Not because of me limping. My melanated skin. Is what determines my fate, even without my own sin. I was born into a loving family. My only regret is them not informing me of my reality. I can see the difference now, between me and you. Even 200 years later, you have a judgment free path to choose. I used to view my skin as a scar. Separating me from who I really want to be. But once I saw my little girls killed in my own car. It changed my knowledge of who you really are. You are missing a chunk of empathy. Something that’s lost to me. How a person so alike me but so different can commit an act so belligerent. I once wanted to be you. Now that’s a thought I can’t even begin to chew. That’s when I was reminded that we are different. Please listen, I try to cringe on the sour taste of liking you. I was stuck to the binding of it like glue. Now I realize what I was doing. I seemed to be willingly choosing to invite the devil into my home. No More!!!
Loving you was a exhausted chore. One I kept repeating, only thinking your heart would start beating.

Bagging groceries has given me
A strange window into people's lives

I stuff their secrets into a paper sack
And I tell them to have a good day

But I'm not sure they do