Robbed

I am broken.

For the very thing that I had that was near to me, has been lost,

It was the very thing I gave birth to,

It was a source of nourishment,

A place for my youngin’ to satisfy her need,

It was my mine,

IT BELONGED TO ME!

IT WAS MY MILK!

 

But where has it gone?

To the mouths of the white girls,

To the mouths of the white boys,

What about my youngin’?

What will she have?

I kept it safe for her,

I made sure I took care of myself,

I did everything a mother was supposed to do.

 

Now, what can I give to you my child?

I have nothing to offer to you,

My bosom is empty and my heart is empty,

If I had, I would have given you the world,

But sadly I have nothing to give to you, my sweet child.

Forgive me, for one day I will repay you.

 

This poem is about Sethe getting her milk robbed from her while she was a slave at Sweet Home. In Beloved, “those boys [the nephews of the Schoolteacher] came in there and took her milk…they held her down and took it…Schoolteacher made one [of the boys] open up her back and when it closed it made a tree…they used cowhide on her and took her milk…they beat her while she was pregnant and they took her milk” (Morrison 19-20). As I wrote this poem, I wrote it as if Sethe was describing her anguish for her milk getting robbed and the remorse of not having it to give to Beloved. I also wrote it as if Sethe was going to restore the bonding between herself and Beloved, since Sethe did not have any milk to give to Beloved when she arrived to Ohio. Now, addressing the section where I state, “to the mouths of the white girls, to the mouths of the white boys,” I got that idea from when Sethe explains that her milk was being taken from her to be given to the young white children. Slaves, including Sethe, would be assigned to breast feed other children besides their own. In Sethe’s case, she was not breast feed by her own mother.