Now, watch us.

You were taken. 
You were packed. 
You were shipped.
You were ripped. 
Away from your Family and home.
In 100s, in 200s, in 300s, in 400s, in 500s, in 600s...
But you were never alone in praying that the nightmare would end.

You were tortured.
You were raped. 
You were beaten.
You were named.
You were given religion.
You were brainwashed to believe,
That brown bodies and their seeds,
Are underneath or below what is white,
What is pristine. 
They called you animals, then second class.
You weren’t allowed to read.
If you knew anything more than what massa told you so, then you were one slave behaving oddly. 
Knowledge was and is punishable.
Deceiving our imported bodies. 


Oh, how I can’t imagine someone ripping me away from my momma, or taking my baby from me. And painting me as a monster because I fight so this won’t be. Dragging us to a selling block. Chained up. Bare. No shoes. No socks. No undergarments, no shirt, no pants, no dress, no skirt. In order to show my worth.
Selling this hot commodity.
Selling my imported body.

Picking your fucking cotton. 
In the hot fucking sun.
Tending to your farms,
And nursing your daughters and sons.
While our sons and daughters are raped and molested by nasty old men and women. 
Their innocence desecrated.
Impregnated. Discarded. Murdered. Whipped. Mass murdered. Shot. Flocked. Tormented. Millions of homicides. 
The genocides of our culture, native tongue, history, names.
On the hunt for everything from which we came. 
Terrorizing our imported bodies. 

We were freed by the thirteenth.
Oh, but once again deceived. 
Because no one wants to feed
... thousands of imported black mouths.
So, we were sharecroppers.
In this Deep South.
Hunted. Imprisoned.
On the chain gang. 
Our genitalia maimed in the name of eugenics.
We can never forget being cheated. 
Our cities bombed.

Homes destroyed. 
Churches shot up.
Crosses burned.
Martyred.
Drugged.
Poisoned by lead in water.
And even by what we’re fed.
Mass incarcerated.
Shot by the police. 
We are stolen.
We are silenced.
We are killed.
By your violence.
By your votes.
We are tired of being told to forget. 
We are tired of still seeing this shit.
We tired of the war on black skin.
We tired of defending our innocence.
We are tired of worrying for our children.
We are tired of the justified police killings.
Tired of this planned judiciary system.
Tired of poor, over-tested, educational systems.
Tired of how we’re portrayed in the news.
Tired of our people going missing. 
And found with organs missing.
Tie’ed of seeing Good ol’ boys from the good ol’ days. in the house seats. In the legislative, the executive, the judiciary. 
Tie’ed of high-interest rates.
Tie’ed of working for you and being underpaid.
We tie’ed. 

We’re over it. 
We’re creating our own.
Change is going to come.
Change has came.
Now, we will make you remember these names.
Remember what we did.
Remember how we overcame in spite of your terrorism.
We built this place. 
You thought you had us running scared in the night.
But we were guided by northern nights.
Higher altitudes.
Nigga, we made it.
Our lips are a whole mood.
Look at you imitating.
But we've been baptized by the stars. 
We have a charge to keep.
We were born fighting.
Now, we're born healing,
Utilizing our feelings for what they are,

POWER!

The descendants of imported bodies.
“In our ancestors, we trust.”
How blessed we are to have them watching us.


Faith Underwood
 ©  2019