Negro in a Cage

I am nobody, nothing,

Just a Negro in a cage,

Cursed by the spell of despair.

It is like a deadly cancer

Tearing into the root, the essence

of all that I am and ever will be,

A feeling of dread that never ceases,

A void of darkness that never ends.

My spirit is scattered into the wind,

Blown into oblivion

Upon the concrete shores of this creation of steel and stone—

Imprisoning that multitude of possessed bodies,

Dreaded hair,

Weathered faces,

Distant stares.

We are but black men,

Captors of each other,

Chained together by notions of racial inferiority,

Beleaguered souls consumed in a furnace of self-hatred.

And all that is left among the ashes

Are the haunting voices of anger and regret

Hung up on the ifs, ands, or buts

Of what a life without bondage

Could have and should have been.