Captive No More

Captive No More

1

What you are reading is not poetry. It is not fiction. It is my true family history.

I am an ascendant from slavery. Yes.

It means I am a descendant of enslaved bodies. Yes.

Inside me, they locked iron collars,

leg fetters, and hand lockers. Yes.

Yes. Does it sound weird? Yes.

Slavery was real in Africa. Yes

Africa was the Ground Zero of slavery. Yes.

And it is not by accident that they called Nigeria the Slave Coast. Yes.

As Europeans mined gold in the Gold Coast, yes,

and mined ivory in Ivory Coast, yes,

they mined people in the Slave Coast, yes,

that they now renamed Nigeria, Yes.

And I am an ascendant from that history of enslavement. Yes.

It is inside my genes. Yes.

It did not kill me. Oh, no, no.

It just toughened up my being. Yes.

2

The Transatlantic Slave Trade, yes,

Came calling behind my great grandmother’s house, yes.

She was cooking at home, yes.

My grandfather who just turned four years old, yes,

Was playing behind the house, yes.

As his mother cooked the evening meal, yes.

The slave raiders came noiselessly from nowhere, yes?

Snatched up his frail body, oh no, no.

Placed a rag of chemicals over his nose, yes

And disappeared with his limp body, yes.

Just as quietly as they came, yes.

they departed from the compound, yes.

They operated like present-day Boko Harams, yes.

Except they did not kill anyone, oh no, no.

They simply wanted human bodies, yes.

To sell to white people, yes.

Waiting by the coastlines of Lagos, yes.

In giant ships sailing to America, yes.

(To be continued)