(in the original text, all of the words in bold are actually struckthrough and change first paragraph vs. last as the point of view changes)

they say that their’s is the slavery that freed us.
this Great White Gift grafted for our own good 
to our skin – a boa constrictor ‘round the necks 
of our chirrens children. the whitest of licorice.
a neck candy canyon.

they say their’s is the gravy that feeds us best.
told us it wasn’t the full-throated choral that we wanted 
nor the dreaming of coral-colored singing but instead 
the clinging of kin to skin, tightly woven within corrals. 

that chiffon and saffron were above our ability to want 
or value, that what hearts most desired were stacks and stacks 
of burlap in a makeshift chifforobe. that the dream of cold iron 
across the collarbone in chattelhood was a noble feature;
to be docile… dormant… the doormat for their republic.

“assuage yourself, rescue pet, in the auspices of our love,
and we’ll bestow upon you a kindness, a clean kennel. a row
of fennels in your comforting cage with rustic finials 
o’er your domicile imprisonment as you ripen rot in age;
what a magnanimous liberty lullaby we’ve given thee!”