In Chains they Take Us

In chains they take us

our voices too loud 

grating on their greatness

a reminder that their proud

is rooted in the suffering 

of us black and brown 

of us who dare speak out

the children of star and moon

the ‘other’.

They take us in chains

from places

where we dare name the elephant in the room

as genocide

and call them out

for selling weapons of erasure.

They take them in chains

from homes

families

children

off streets 

from worksites

from graduations

trying to convince us they deserved it;

because they were illegal;

because they were undocumented;

they call them animals

as if it’s not illegal and inhumane

to beaurocratically undocument people

by forcing them through systems of false justice.

Systems that are functioning just as they were designed to.

Adorned in chains they take us

always seeking to strip humanity away

in order to justify injustice.