The Color Of Our Skin
The color of our Skin — became
A Sentence — without Trial —
A Verdict etched in newborn Flesh
By History’s heartless Style —
The Cradle learned to Rock with Hate
Before it learned a Hymn —
And Lullabies were stitched with Fear
And Warnings sewn within —
The Eye was trained to hunt in Shades
As they would invent Crime —
As if the Dark were Evidence
And Light — my Alibi —
The Whip remembers every Back
The Chain — each silent Throat —
The Earth still tastes the Iron Blood
That soaked the Killing Fields —
We buried Children with their Names
Still trembling on the Tongue —
Because a Color dared to live
Before its Breath began —
No Angel stayed the trembling Hand
No Heaven interfered —
The Sky learned how to look away
While Men became what they feared —
And now the Graves are organized
By Melanin and Bone —
The Soil keeps perfect Record Books
Of which were left — alone —
If God still counts our Genocide
The Tally is too vast —
For Skin was never born of Rage —
Yet Rage is all it gave —
The Color was not the Enemy —
The Enemy was Sight —
That learned to make a Target out
Of every shade of Light —
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