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| Diana Ejaita’s “Portrait of History” |
Black bodies dance under white, bright streetlights
The same way they do under white police
Black guns pierce black souls covered by white sheets
Black skin knows the sun taste better at night
We feed predator, we know this outright
We mourn Garner, the others, we cry, we grieve
We struggle, we bleed, and no, I can’t breathe
They kill us in many, different ways despite
Our protests for rights and liberty
While they rewrite our wide history
So we will ebonize strange, white, bright lies
We are not strange fruit, striped scarred stitchery
One day, revolution will come through benighted skies
One day, you’ll see that still like air, we’ll rise
Shalala Leny is a student and freelance writer in Miami, FL. Her poetry tends to explore the topics of race and identity, especially in a black person in America.