we, mercenary merchants of misery, godless holy white men one floor above on bent knees bent on breaking the spirit of broken black internees sheared crown to toe, branded, bound, inurned one floor below, bricked red, mortared in blood, smooth-surfaced from shuffling, lumbering, catatonic back and forth pacing of interned misery, manacled insanity parasol’d umbrae, crypted beneath arches arched low, convex’d, bowed upward, outward by the rising agonizing cries for mercy one floor below, clamoring, clawing, handcuffed hands dug dungeon walls cryptic names, hieroglyphic prayers groveling knee-deep in three menacing months of accumulated communal feces, surging putrescent menstrual flow, no water, no food, no light, no air to breathe, pleading their last rights to last say, remember me
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