Trapped

We walk on this dark soil

with the rich chocolaty shade

staining the white on the balls of our feet.

We tread over rocks and leaves,

leaving behind fragments of our shattered pasts.

We stumble over the remains of our ancestors.

Remains that we want to forget.

We walk in our ancestors’ shadows

grinding their degraded bones and loose pieces

of hanging flesh

beneath our heels.

They died fighting for the freedom

we pretend to have earned

on our own.

We didn’t earn freedom. We did not

break our backs with the souls of cotton plants

clutched in our palms.

Someone else labored from can to can’t

and ran from house to house

to free us.

But, none of that matters

because we continue to cage ourselves.

Our guns have become our cells.

The blood on our hands like the lashes on their backs.