We Were Taken, But We Still Sing
(for those who remember) They took us. From womb, from name, from land, from line. They unthreaded our roots and called it order. They renamed us and called it kindness. They masked the theft with paper smiles and cages wrapped in flags. But we still sing. I walked the streets of a land not my own, but the drums beneath my feet knew me. They whispered in isicathamiya tones, “You’re not lost, you were sent.” In KwaZulu-Natal, I was not explained. I was recognized. My silence didn’t make them nervous — it made them nod. For they, too, were torn from the firelight of their families and made to wear another’s story. And yet... they sing. God, do they sing. With voices older than the Empire, with harmonies that outlive trauma. In Soweto, no mask survives. You are seen, or you are not. And I was seen — not as stranger, but as sibling. Not because of skin. Because of scar. Because of song. Because of the way I carried the memory they tried to burn out of me....