The sea was mad

Roaring and screaming.
I could hear them.
The shackles, the chains
I could hear them.
A toxic smell that contaminated my nostrils, suffocated my lungs and grew on my soul
I could feel them.
Their pain, their dehydration, their starvation-
them.
Walls painted in piss,
The dungeons were moist.
Locked without ventilation and sunlight,
I couldn’t be them.
In rooms with hundreds of others,
awaiting the door of no return.
I wonder if they prayed.
If they begged to the God, the Portuguese gave them.
If they begged to see their brother, sister, mother, father, child.
I wonder how long they begged,
before giving in.
How long they prayed,
before realizing the Portuguese God was enslaving them.
How long it took to break them.
before suicide became a solution.

I wonder if the women cried when they were raped.
If they pleaded their case.
I wonder if they resisted being taken away.
I wonder if they ever said, “Death is more honorable than this.”
I wonder if they despised their children that is part their oppressor.
I wonder if their children ever knew their father.
I wonder if they wanted to know.

The sea was mad
Roaring and screaming.
I could hear them.
The shackles, the chains
I could hear them.
A toxic smell that contaminated my nostrils, suffocated my lungs and grew on my soul
I could feel them.

Today the castle is surrounded
by the people of the enslaved.
400 years later,
Things have not changed.
The children beg with starvation in their hopeless eyes.
I wonder if thats how the African slaves looked.
In the eyes of the children,
I could tell they wanted help.
I could tell they needed help.
I could tell tourists were their only sign of help.

Their family lived on in the castle and in the sea
to only benefit America’s children.
To only provide us with things we take for granted.
To build up a country made by us, but not for us.
But what about them?
What about these uneducated, half speaking english Ghanaian kids that wish they could go to school?
How grateful they would be to be in our schools,
to have our meals, to experience some wealth?
They starve and beg for something they may never see.
They pray to a god they might not truly believe.

What if that was me?
What if my greatgrands were screaming at the bottom of the sea?
What if my greatgrands were locked up in cells with piss and feces?
What if my greatgrands were slaves?
What if that was my narrative?

Sadly, it was.