you can’t be but so free

in a sorrowland

 

a place

you were forced to

used & discontinued

discarded to find a way

out of no way with obstacles

piled higher than the mast of

the good ship Jesus

 

stolen ancestors

wait for reciprocity

praying we overcome

they waiting

to inhale can’t breathe

still underwater even the ones

who did not jump from the ship

 

we are free to limbo free to continue

in limbo free to pop up from the bottom

of the ship to the white house but

can’t free ourselves from the narrative

of being disposable shot down regularly

like animals we

are preyed upon some

times preying on one another master

sick  we sick trying to make

our ice as cold as his

we seek recovery from

pig scraps kool aid & commodification

while they make america great again

 

you can’t be but so free

when you wreak

or Ellison’s invisible blues while hyper

visibility dehumanizes you makes your

children targets

targeted for

destruction called public education

a prelude to incarceration or domestic

deportation eaten by a machine

we can’t touch but are crushed by

 

can’t be but so free when you

hooked on the hooks

but you think you fishing

divided against yourself

wondering why you can’t

get over as you look down

at your feet counting the

steps you took to get nowhere

in a rigged game where

lies like independence are celebrated

by conquers

 

you can’t be but so free

unless you overstand your duty

to resist exercise the freedom

to try

be free enough to

dare to struggle &

prepare to win like a promise

waiting to be fulfilled

till you do that

you can only be

but so free

in a sorrowland

 

 

(art for sale on a website that caters to racist) — you can’t be but only so free…