Do You Know Who I Am? I Don’t!

I don’t know who I am. And how can I?

When everything about me exists just shy – of revelation.

I’ve sought information and elevation, but I always miss the mark.

I fear I shall be forever left in the dark.

But I have a memory!

It’s not a memory that I recall with the eyes of my mind.

But it’s a memory that exists in every cell that is mine.

In my DNA like purines and pyrimidines,

The memory doesn’t bear my face, but it bears my trace.

Sights, smells, tastes that I’d experienced way before my current existence.

To share this memory is to risk being called too this or too that.

Too angry, too black.

But what does one do with a memory of being suffocated by loves,

All because they valued us in droves – but only in droves.

Food? Never enough.

Oh, the smell! The smell! The smell!

Not even our dead bore this smell in the past.

I know our connection to home will forever be lost.

How did we begin to smell so different, so soon?

And our sick is different too.

I shake, I shiver, and I sweat.

But I can’t find a root or herb to ward off this threat.

I speak of the ache of this memory,

Only to be told that I hate another.

Is it hate to reflect on the anguish caused by separation –

To disclose the pain of being plucked from the bosom of my mother?

I’ve flown on metal wings to the north, but I can’t seem to make the journey east.

I blame a lack of trust in the metal wings and even the cost.

But my memory makes me fearful of going East – across the Atlantic,

My last trip was so tragic.

I know I’ll hear the songs erupting from the belly of the sea.

The metal walls won’t block them from getting to me.

The songs of the souls that will hum from the sea to the plane,

They will enter through those double glass windows and reach me all the same.

I will hear their song carried by the winds of the trades,

The most joyful, sorrowful song I’ll ever hear.

Joy for the treachery escaped,

But sorrow for every brother who kept their place.