This was a poem that came to me on the day that we received the verdict for the case involving the cops who killed Breonna Taylor. The ruling reminded me of so many others, and the fact that Black women have been irreparably harmed by white supremacy and racism in America. We are so sorry, Breonna. We will always keep your legacy alive.
To the Black woman, America is an abusive husband. We built his home and his wealth. We carried and nursed the seed he forced inside us. We cooked his dinner and cleaned his home. We left our own children to take care of his child. We attended his university. We earned his degree. We ran his company for less than everyone else. We lost our sisters in childbirth. We lost our sisters to murder by the police. We lost our sisters to COVID. And after all that we gave and made and worked and created, he said that our body and our dinner and our work was good, but that if we died, it wouldn’t matter. And that no one would care. Because all that he ever cared about was what we could give to him. So he killed us. And no one cared. His skin folk stayed silent. Or they said it was our fault. They went on with their lives like they always do. And they left our sisters to pick up the pieces.