The Stripping Away of Bare Bones

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Musical Selection: The Isley Brothers|Voyage to Atlantis

A Collaborative Effort with BJ Dawson

Photo by Gioele Fazzeri on Unsplash

We, the oppressed are still chained — still
bound to the walls of the majority.
If we breathe the wrong way, a shot to
the lungs while we’re blinking could be
our demise.
Yet . . . they tell us we are free.
If we were free, we’d be able to roam
the streets in our skin — black as night,
beautiful as a half-moon, without fear.

They plummet in our direction — bullets with
no names, claiming our souls one at 
a time. And if that’s not enough, we are being
stripped of our bones while we’re already 
bare — naked as a newborn, cooing in 
the dark, crying to be held — yearning to be loved.
The Powers That Be see no wrong in their ways.
They’re going about business as usual 
while we pull at the air disappearing 
from our sight.

One by one, rights are being struck down — laws
put in place to keep us in place, and pockets
are being laced with almighty dollars to keep
the loud ones quiet. 
Soon we will be wombless, wounded, wound up,
and worked into the plan they have
to be rid of us . . . 
And then, what?

And then, nothing.
Split from the bone,
the many, now the one
lone splinter flees this madness
seeking silence, solace, solitude;
a peace, apart from malicious eyes;
the swarming hornets of untended,
weaponized trauma,
wielding perverse justice as
both heirloom and cudgel,
endlessly frustrated by
never striking flush with it.

They lash out in all directions — targeting
the Other with retribution — both of the
self-proclaimed divine and the
self-indulgent, profane type — never pausing
long enough to reflect, to witness that
there is no They, nor is there an Other;
there is, has been, and will only ever be Us.
Many claim to follow someone named Jesus,
who tried telling us exactly this
before being killed for it.

We, the oppressed are still chained — still
bound by rusted yoke of crumbling society
failing to see how the tie that binds also limits
their own roaming; existentially tragic
how we diminish our horizons
by diminishing fractions of life
over the whole,
all while labeling this farce Justice.

But someone says, “Have faith.
Have hope. Remain open to 
the possibilities of change,” and
we all stand on tired feet, shuffling
to distant places, wondering when
that “Change” will ever come.

©2023 Tremaine L. Loadholt and Barry Dawson Jr., IV

This isn’t our first rodeo. We’ve been collaborating with one another since the early 2000s. Here are a couple of our other pieces. Thank you for reading.

The Isley Brothers, Voyage to Atlantis via YouTube

©2023 Tremaine L. Loadholt and Barry Dawson, Jr., IV originally published in A Cornered Gurl

Two more of our collaborations:

Dead Roses & Understanding the Power of “No”

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