The marks on our wrists, they could tell a thousand stories.
The wounds on our ankles, a million more stories.
The rage was extreme, yet buried away in fear.
Hunger, the least of our woes.
Such horror and agony to withstand,
that throwing us off these ships was considered mercy.
Anywhere else would be a better dwelling place.
But we were slaves; men unfit to even have dying wishes.
We watched our fathers die; hanged on gallows.
We watched our mothers raped; amidst tears in open fields.
We watched our siblings sold for pieces of silver.
We worked our whole lives in sugar cane and cotton fields.
No roofs over our heads.
So cold, no coats.
We shared the nights with poisonous serpents.
We called them Masters.
And we dared not talk back at them.
They stripped us in the markets,
displaying our private endowments, as attempts to price us up.
They auctioned us to bidders; bidders of their like skin color.
Bidders with much dreaded hearts.
Monsters in fine clothing,
who chained us to horses; riding for miles unending.
Blessed were those who Death visited.
For no pasture was green enough, to give us a sense of fulfillment.
No pasture was green enough, in this world of ours.
Our tunnels had no ends.
Pitch black till The Maker calls.
For we had no reason to smile, unless the master bids you.
All of these, we attribute,
to the melanin menace.
Twas what we did to deserve this.
And to see those we call our brothers, beat once more this shameful drum
giving the devil a beautiful name, Xenophobia!
Just because we asked for bread.
Just because we left our homes, in search of a fallacy.
The fallacy of the land of milk and honey.
Home is not home anymore.
Home, reminds me of a place where my neighbor was my brother.
Where we shared the joy and endured the pain.
Home, paints to me a day where we take the knee at heart,
with our right fists up and our left hand on the next shoulder.
Home shall be when black lives matter to black people.
And then to all people!
