Used Against You Poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

It has to be traumatic,
To have a comfort stripped from you.
To have someone forcibly take reality...
And turn your world into a living hell.

It has to be daunting,
To have someone else take your resources,
And do what they choose with them.
Creating friction between your family...
And perhaps,
Long acquired friends.

It has to be emotionally devastating,
To know everything you have or had...
No longer is in your possession.
It has to be...
Not as severe as what has happened,
To my ancestors.

At least you were not sold like a slave.
Just treated like one.
Like an animal used to do someone else's 'bidding'.
Used to make someone else's life more comfortable.
Fooled.
As deceit...
Was and 'still' is,
Used against you!

Remember using the 'N' word with abandonment?
Tossed between you and your business associates...
As parting gifts to those you abused.
For sport and fun!
Like you secretly have done.
And you privately still do.

These days for you...
Have to be quite eye opening!
As drenching awareness pours upon your consciousness...
With every dropp of it,
Straining to maintain pretensions.
And squeezing a draining brain to find fresh antics,
With less financial support to recover lost dignities.

This 'has' to be...
Something you had not planned,
But must endure!
Hopefully it will not take over four hundred years.
That's a long time to be subjected to another's bondage...
For purposes to feed their greed,
And keep their riches harvested.

But then again...
You are not left without a few skills you've mastered.
These transitions do come in cycles,
You know?
Keep the faith!