The sun does not rise-
it presses down.
Heat clings to the back of the neck
like a master's hand.

In the cottonfields,
bodies bend before the day does.
Fingers bleed quietly
into the white.

No name here belongs to the self.
They are given,taken,
twisted into chains
that speak before the whip does.

Songs rise,not in joy,
but to keep breath moving,
to remind the sky
that someone still remembers
what freedom used to feel like.

Children are born into waiting-
waiting to be sold,
waiting to be broken,
waiting for the night
to offer what the day never will.

Even the wind seems afraid
to touch this land too gently.

And yet,
somehow,
the soul
refuses to die.