• I am a slave.
    I wonder where I will go, where I am being taken
    Sweat and blood alike are slipping from my brow
    Gnarled, old wood creaking, moaning
    Cries of my ancestors haunt me
    I smell death and decay.
    Wood boards as rough as sandpaper
    And my rope bindings cutting like Jabari’s thorns upon his temple
    As he lay on the wooden cross.
    My dreams of past life are filled with fire
    Horror grips me like an iron vise.
    The belly of this ghostly, dark ship digests us
    Bodies thrown ruthlessly together
    All black.
    I am afraid.
    My cross is this ship
    Leading onto the grave.
    I remember what seemed a lifetime ago
    Shining white sand burning my eyes
    A path to the Door of No Return.
    Pale- and black-skinned alike burn my flesh
    A sign of their ownership.
    Watumwa.
    Slave.

    But I shall not let my will be broken
    As that of a raft heaved upon the cruel, craggy rocks
    Shattered into splinters.
    I will be a tall mountain,
    Majestically looming over everything around me
    And I am my own!
    No man shall ever rule my heart.
    I will always have my will.
    No matter what sun may scar my flesh
    Nor what whips or hot coals may raze my being
    My will must always be mine.

    Remember these words of a slave.
    A Watumwa.
    A life does not have to rich, powerful, or prestigious.
    It only has to be.