To the Weeping Girl in the Wagon

To the Weeping Girl in the Wagon,

I watched your tears roll down your face and felt my strength melt away. With every foot that cart rolled off down the road, it snatched and tugged my heart out of my chest a bit more as it went. I begged and pleaded for them to let the two of you say goodbye, but they knocked you down again and again. You tucked your head between your legs and were carted off somewhere far away. And even though I know you got your freedom, I still missed so much time.

So, I have to ask what happened to you. You lived to see your freedom and your mother, but what happened along the way? I’ve seen and heard what they do to a woman enslaved, but I don’t know your point of view. Did you fight and claw and demand to be let go, or did you play the game until you didn’t have to anymore? Did you carry your pride on your sleeve or did you again bow your head?

I know that your brother and your mother love you so, but what of the love that you have for yourself? Was there any love left to give in a body you weren’t allowed to control? Your story got lost somewhere between that auction block and those freedom papers. I can’t let you be just a reference in someone else’s story. Every struggle is valid and I wonder about yours.

He says you were defenseless, but there has to be more to it than that. There has to be a journey that was taken and continued once you left his line of vision. Just because we can’t see you, doesn’t mean you aren’t there. You lived until they freed you, and then you lived some more. So why don’t we know that for sure?

I want to know what it was like being a sister, a daughter, a woman, you. You are so much more than the tears you shed when they took you from the life and the family you once knew. Maybe you can tell us what you felt, and maybe we’ll learn and feel something knew.

Thank you