I don't know why they named me Venus
Maybe it is because my skin is a midnight sky,
Or perhaps it is because the night I was taken from the village, stars fell from the heavens and shattered like glass beneath me.
Piercing through the soles of my feet, and swimming into my veins, the galaxy forced her way into my body and sat in my belly, singing a lullaby and slitting her wrists.
Ghost-men of skin as pale as dry bones put a price on my head and sold me to a man who swallows god whole and vomits him out at the pulpit.
He tells me I belong to him now, and smiling I say;
“Oh, you’re in luck! Every last piece of me is a gift I want to give away. Come closer, take a good look and let me know if you see anything you like.”
Fingers- Great condition, minimal wear and tear, perfect for domestic labor
Nose- Wide, flat, but handle with care; Could never forget the metallic smell of rusty chains cutting into the decaying flesh of sister from months on a slave ship that gently journeyed towards hell.
Thighs- Mmm, good choice. Smooth and strong but bloody from the day four different traders rammed their way through the door in between and broke the locks. Only one of them returned after that.
I watch them, you know.
The Ghosts, hiding themselves away in the dark corridors of their lofty dwellings of brick.
Weaving nothingness out of paper and ink. Learning, they call it.
I see knowledge chuckle to herself as she peers at them through an open window.
They are searching for her inside their tall gates, except that is not really where she is, is it?
Knowledge is free and unbound, running wild over swaying trees, through caves, down waterfalls and even out of the lips of a girl with skin the color of a midnight sky.
Yes, even out of the lips of a girl with skin the color of a midnight sky.
Oh, daughters of the great green savannah,
Weep for me.
I have been uprooted from among you where I grew and have been carried into a diabolic land where ashes fall from a raging heaven
Bitter.cold.beautiful
Weep for me, for I will never again dance on dewey grass on a moonlit night, surrounded by the song of a tribe.
No more shall I be burnt by the black desire of a warriors lust, and in a wild daze wonder to myself how a man whose very hands had torn apart bears and lions could yet hold me softer than an early morning rain.
Weep for me
For the way I shall slowly be forgotten, because little slave girls with sad eyes do not get invited into history
How shall you remember me?
By the men that made me an orphan
How shall you remember me?
By a tablet of stone that bears the name that I received in a baptism of chains.
How shall you remember me?
Shall you remember me?