Divided

By Shan Nelson

The United States. United in hate. In genocide. In enslavement. The lack of love is outrageous. This person says that person isn’t a person. But this person lacks basic humanity. 

Desecrated the stolen land you stand on. “Discovered” this place where people were already living. 

They tell you your life isn’t worth living. Your value is in the work you produce. 

They want to do what they do including beat, pillage, and rape you. 

The economy of this “country” is embedded in my lineage. They try and force me to unknow my heritage. 

But this blood tells the stories of the ones who came before me. 

Herded like cattle. Packed into ships like sardines in a can. 

But I want to peel back the fallacy that’s painted on the lid. 

Let’s have a look inside and see what the many decades did. 

Is it possible to break free from the trauma caused by the suffering? 

Layer a new coat of paint, give it a different name, but the game is the same. 

The hardest part is it’s not a game at all.

This is life and they don’t care if we fall. 

In fact, they beat us down, push us off the cliff, 

Tie the noose so tight around our necks, we’re already dead before our bodies’ swinging. 

Add insult to injury, tell us it isn’t just about our lives. 

But this is our life. 

Clawing, scrapping, grappling for freedom. In a world that isn’t just or free. 

They want to break our will so we may never be free. 

They want to take my life, say it’s not worth saving. 

But it isn’t just about my life. 

This is our life. 

The one. The many. 

Cultivated in this space they created. 

The blood shed won’t be in vein. 

But it is more than a drop. 

These are grandparents and great-grand parents and the ones who came before them. These are the songs they took from the mouths of little girls. The backs they broke of the little boys they called men. The unspoken words from all of them. These are the torn clothes and scars you didn’t see that became the sobs inside the bodies the bellowed in the night. These are unforgiving, unanswered cries to a god they created. 

This blood is a wealth of unseen identities calling to broken beliefs of those that no one ever fought for. 

This is a fight centuries in the making.

This is a never ending war that they brought to your door. 

This is in the fabric of your clothes. The material of your homes. This is grown into the food you taste. 

This is everything they gave. And the more that they took. 

These are the lives and the stories untold by those delicate souls. 

These are the dreaded words from quiet lips. These are the sounds you don’t hear. 

This is the fear. 

These are the lives that they tell you don’t matter. 

By Shan Nelson