I AM NOT FREE

I work hard
Back breakingly hard
I am not paid

A lot of people got me to
This new world
Both foreign looking
And ones who’s skin glistened
In the sun
And was as dark as me

I will never forget
The pains of crossing that ocean
Till my confinement in squalor
I had never seen so much water
How can we be treated so I wondered
By people who though different
Were just like me ?

My wretchedness had only begun when I entered that ship
Death took many on the way
But grudgingly stayed far away from me
He apparently didn’t feel any fraternity 

Humanity I threw away as I vomited
On the deck of that wretched ship
I found on landing no reason
To suppose it would ever come back to me

Work
That is all I do
I am a machine
Machines on the estate are valuable
And well looked after
But I am easily replaced so
I am mere fodder

In the fields I toil
For cane
For cotton
For money for the owner far away
No one appreciates
How dismal life can be

My master gets my brother to beat me
That hurts
It pained me so especially
As I worked with sweat flowing off my back
That stung with each lash 
I never felt such resentment 

I have seen many a sun rise in this new land
I was young when I arrived with
So much fear in my heart
I don’t remember where I came from
I buried that inside me a long time ago

I see new faces everyday
Fresh and green and sick as I was
I now laugh
I am not heartless but the pain they feel
Is no less intense in me now that
I am the one who will show them
Their new despair
An inescapable despair

One day I will be free
I will feel my soul float over that ocean
And carry me home
I do hope they will remember me
For I have been gone a long time
Since they captured me