MIDDLE PASSAGE

The water surrounds us, captures us, enslaves us.

The water is our parent, our master, our home.

We have been sailing this passage for what feels like centuries, for what feels like a dream.

There is only darkness here in this hold, darkness deeper than our skin, for no light comes to these depths. Just sick, and shit, and liquids of various sorts.

There is illness beneath these roofs, illness we never saw on the coast, in our lives, before we were taken away. Taken to the ship. Taken to the sea.

No one above explains what has happened, not in any tongue we understand. But our stories are the same: taken from our villages, harvested from our lands, to be chained upon this boat, this sea, to go somewhere new and horrible.

Our past is gone. Our future unknown.

Our present is water, which we cannot drink, cannot have.

We are enslaved by this pale water around us, beneath us, which bathes us in its sickening power.

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