Strange Fruit

Lethal

Lethal

If these walls could talk
endless rhythms and lyrics
of what I bared my children
what would you think they say if....
I woke up today as fresh as a southern peach
I express myself by hanging with fruit
that seem to only go bad
when we keep the harmonies of our songs
strained on our vocal chords
knowing that if we were to speak
that it would be open season
not only where the seeds pierce our flesh
and undress what our souls cannot bare to the world
If these walls could talk
endless chains and ropes
of what I could not grasp
what would you think they say if....
I was taken on a date
March 19th would burn
into the tracks of my mind
as my date starts the ignition of his car
I was forced to speak
but my response was to only challenge
the abusive relationship of my previous partner
he only wanted me in the bedroom
and if not there I was in the garden
tending to the vegetation of his land
where he wanted me to kiss every footprint in the mud
and every time that I missed those prints
I would become dust in the wind
He was 19 and my 18 years would soon come to an end
because my body could not
drown anymore in this sea of blood
he managed to put me in a position
where my body would feel lifeless in his clutches
If these walls could talk
endless kerosene and light
of what the devil dared
what would you think they say if....
The only person that made my situation
a blessing in disguise
was murdered by a mob that swore
he was an abomination
to what the overseer
did not want the enslaved to sense
the liberation of words escaping
the tongues of fatherless children
making sense of adulthood nonsense
adults that dream to think
of the days that they will ever
be wiser than the generation before them
always having to play catch up
to the contributions this person could have made
but you dazed him with the mace of your stomping
toes as they tap danced
until the lifespan of the duet
became a cynical solo
let the light show
the truth of what America
will allow on the grounds
of criminology in the South
If these walls could talk
endless showers of rounds
of what my body dared not to miss
what would you think they say if...
The rain has a therapeutic aura
that allows the mind, body, and soul
to become one and the same
and today as droplets soak my body
with a canvas of romantic colors
on this cloudy depressing night
may I be remembered as a Woman
who sought to fight
my words are my swords
towards the demons
I have come across in this colonized New World
My name is Mary Turner
and I stand ten feet under
the destruction that the world questions today
If my walls could talk
it would remind the world
of the endless bloodshed
that Amerikkka devours each and every time
an enslaved African manages to kill another colonialist
at their own game of manhunt
Sidney Johnson was that bold 19 year old
that did not mind knocking a twelve year difference
that not only made the world see Emmett Till's face
or figure out how they aborted my body
to gut my child into the world
only to crush the male persona
of the Black man to this day
That is why it is important that all queens
protect their kings
and in vice versa
because in this crazy world alone
we are only seen as strange fruit
in a domesticated fabricated land of false implications of democrazy
and the politricks on soliciting the contributions of others for the capitalistic monster
we call Amerikkka


Claire Armonie Stephanie Vilain, from Columbia, MD, is majoring in Africology & African American Studies in the Master's program at Temple and plans to graduate in 2019.

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