Born on the slave ships, packed in tight
in a place where humanity is attached to white.
Our suffering is not rooted in money
or the lack of magic rights,
but that the world is addicted
to the tragic sight 
of blackness trapped in plight.
Civilization only knows that it has its life
when black folks are sacrificed.
Our flesh is the devil’s asking price.

Tell us where the pain stops
because they trade stocks for our grave plots,
vacate plantations
and then build prisons in the same spots.

So what progress do you speak of?
The world acts out the same script
that was written on a slave ship.
All they did was perform the plain trick
of giving “democracy” a face-lift,
exchanged our chains for house arrest anklets.

Those who seek truth will find
that before our youth can rise
they are euthanized 
by vigilantes
or officials wearing suits and ties.
Our homes have no food inside  
but when we use crime to survive
they get on the news and lie
and say we are committing racial suicide. 

When you’re black,
there’s no place that you can hide –
we’re terrorized in all zip codes.
When we follow yellow brick roads,
cops kill us because of our skin tones.
But there’s no charges,
after body cams and flip phones
show the victim had
dangerous nigger syndrome.
The world is a big zone
where blackness and trespassing
are written in stone. 

Until we are free,
we can never say we’ve been home. 

By: Darryl Walker, Jr.
(c) Copyright 2017

Prompt: Conquer