The Concealed Scars Of Slavery

The inconspicuous scars of slavery linger on The deep wounds of racism are live and fresh All Blacks feel the scorching mesh Of racism in our blood, on the apron Of our brothers and sisters who are Struggling every single day. There's a war Constantly being waged in our lungs, deep inside Us. We're unease, uncomfortable. We changed side Yet, we feel the sulfuric stench, the sting Like a blazing taser through our body. We feel the ring Of powerful punches in the face, in our guts Every time we watch videos of cops Brutalizing our brothers and sisters. We feel the cuts On our abused back, we get hiccups When we're crying that ‘we can't breathe' ‘Blacks lives matter' every second of the day We see the formidable enemies on the Parkway In the stores, in the streets. We leave Them alone. We see them everywhere In the schools, even in the churches. Please Don't laugh. I am not laughing. That's not a tease We see them interfering and disturbing our lives All the time. They have makeshift prisons, hives Everywhere. They even build schools for Blacks And they make a lot of money doing so They hire and fire as they please like a yoyo Like they own the world, the stores, the racks And every piece of garbage under the sun At times, we don't know if we should crawl, walk, run Or fly like super-beings. The deep wounds are alive The scars are invisible and painful as we move or thrive Yet, we're not afraid because we're still dying in the streets We're still dying on the lawns; we're still dying all minutes Of the day. We are brave, we're not afraid to fight We're resilient. We have hope; we can see a faraway light The smoldering scars of slavery are ingrained in our brain The deep wounds of racism put us in an excruciating pain. Copyright © June 2020, Hébert Logerie, all rights reserved. Hébert Logerie is the author of several poetry books.