I Understand

Dear Uncle,

Oh, how I have missed seeing your face, I cannot say that I wish to be back in the comforts of your jail cell but I will say that I would give anything to be by your side again. I hate that they won't let us in to see you anymore but I don't want you to worry about grandma. She's alright. I mean, I hear her pray for you every night and watch as she whispers your name into the distance when it's a nice day outside, or when she sees one of the new babies on the plantation walk for the first time to their mothers. I think that's her way of coping-recalling your name when she sees something beautiful.
 Being out here and growing into the knowledge of how truly detrimental this work-this life, this torture-is I understand. I understand why you ran away and why you never stopped fighting. I know that this world sees you as a crazy man for opposing what we all seem to believe is the inevitable, and I admittedly have been one of those people for as long as I can recall, but after watching the stripping of a young mother of every single one of her babies and watching a mother wish death upon her dying daughter, who was unfortunate enough to catch the gaze of an overbearing and hateful white man who saw fit to strip her of her fortitude and force her to bore an offspring that would never be accepted into this world, just in the hopes that her suffering would end sooner...I understand. No whip, or treatment can equate to the pain I have felt for these people. So Uncle. I-I understand.

And I'm so sorry.

-Harriet (Arie)