I can’t wear a cotton shirt without thinking of slavery.

Sometimes I imagine walking through cotton fields with an Enslaver or his son… their hands on the small of my back…or perhaps around my throat…

Sometimes I imagine the cottons buds splattered with blood…the gruesome images that burned the retinas of my ancestors…that burned their bodies

Sometimes I imagine a past I’ll never know; conjuring a pain that is ever-present…

Sometimes I imagine America picking me apart like cotton flowers.