My scalp ached as the sun scorched my melanin rich skin- forcing drops of sweat to trickle down my face and down my chest. 
The chest that was bare to the people. 
My dress torn apart and stripped with filthy hands that were ashamed their owner had no shame.

Every movement was labored as the gashes and wounds on my back would open and close to the rhythm of my work. 
I toiled the land and sung sweet lullabies to the soil. 
The soil that had to hold the corrupt and the dirty but only provided and hugged the pure and devoted. 
  
My scalp ached as I remembered her hands pulling on my braids and her wretched voice screeching and bleeding my ears. 
My braids gone, my crown shown. 
Held with courage and kept in place with grit. 
  
My scalp ached but only in remembrance of the pain. 
But still, through the day, I worked with the elderly and the children on my back. 
And through the night would fall to my knees, hold the Earth roughly between my fingers, and cry out through the night and move to the beat of the gentle breeze of hope. 
  
Hope of a tomorrow. 
Hope of a day where the children of my children and of theirs will stand before the masses- the young and the old, the beautiful and the ugly, the white, the black, and everything in between- and hold their attention with her beautiful braids. 

Her excellence. 
The colors of her ancestors would play around her laughing. 
They would highlight the beautiful melanin of her skin, and her courage and her grit would shine to the world. 
  
My scalp would, then, not ache anymore. 
I would beat my glistening chest instead and cry out to the people, 
          “This land is not yours. This land is not mine. It is hers.” 
With that the water would rush out from the Earth and the stars would glisten and the mountains would rise. 

& Only then would the people understand. 

 Jesus was one of us.  
 
-jt