22d (edited) • Wisdom & Nuggets 💡
Poem I promised to share
Title: Before You Knew Your Name: The Life Sentences We Inherit
I often wonder—
if they had placed a mirror beside our cradle,
before they handed us their fears,
their gods,
their enemies,
their names for one another—
would we have recognized ourselves sooner?
Or would we still spend our lives
mistaking inherited cages
for home?
The day you were born,
they wrapped you in a blanket
and handed you a world already divided.
This is us.
This is them.
These are your people.
Those are theirs.
These words are sacred.
Those words are dangerous.
Before you knew the taste of your own name,
they taught you which side of the fence to stand on.
And you learned quickly.
You inherited fear
before you inherited freedom.
You memorized the language of separation
so well
you called it truth.
Years passed.
You built homes inside borrowed beliefs,
fought wars with strangers wearing your own face,
mistook loyalty for love
and silence for peace.
We spend our lives defending the walls
we never realized we inherited.
And call it freedom.
The greatest divide
was never between nations,
religions,
colors,
or creeds.
It was the distance
between who we were taught to be
and who we are beneath it all.
Some people serve life sentences
for crimes they never committed.
The crime of being born into stories
they never questioned.
Tell me—
when did you decide
that the bars were yours?
When did you stop reaching for the key?
And if every label,
every doctrine,
every flag,
every inherited fear
fell quietly to the floor—
would you recognize
the person standing in the mirror?
Or would you meet them
for the very first time?
Sometimes the prison
is a belief you never examined.
A wound you called identity.
A truth you never questioned
because everyone you loved
called it holy.
And then the mirror arrives.
Not to accuse you.
But to ask—
What part of you
is truly yours?
- Nekesha Burrell
To the reader: What have you mistaken for yourself simply because it was handed to you before you knew how to choose?
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Poem I promised to share
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