You snatched us
Away from the arms
of those we call our. own
Into the darkness
that we were not able to break free from
Into the pitfalls
of what you called reform
Into the hands
of what was deemed religious
Into the grave that silenced the horrors
Horrors of what you put us through
In the name of assimilation
In the name of integration
In the name of abolition
Domination.
Extinction.
Your ways kept us locked
Even when we were released
Back to the arms of our people
Who we no longer knew
The language whose melody
And words we couldn’t even say
To a tribe that welcomed our arrival
Yet surprised at the hollow shell
Surprised at the disdain
Surprised at the apathy
The disrespect
The cruelty
The disconnect
The place we’ve been was hell
Ran by people in robes and shrines
where blood of our people flowed
And pulpits and altars
And those who deemed themselves holy
Holy to keep us locked
Holy to keep us afraid
Holy to keep us bound
In shackles and chains
In whips and ropes
In words that pierced through our skin
The skin that they persecuted
That they deemed savage
That they deemed unworthy
And they drilled down
the language that was foreign to our lips
They drilled down the unworthiness of our race
They drilled down the civilization that we are lacking
And they beat us until we relented
Until our tongues were formed to their language
Until the color of our skin turned pale
Until the identity of our people we forgot
Until the graves piled up from those who resisted
Until the graves piled up and up and up
That even the land
from which they were buried
couldn’t keep the history in
And those of us who lived to tell our stories And those of us who went back home A shell of a person, an identity that was once there Repeatedly, they told us we were unworthy Savaged Uneducated Yet who here is the uncivilized?
This poem came as a channeling of the field- I wrote it within 10 minutes and didn’t stop until the words stopped in my head.