"The Faded Anella Reborn"

"The Faded Anella Reborn"

I.

Anella, the dye of blood and birth,

poured from the hands of African earth

you colored our palms

before we knew the meaning

of red.

Not red like roses.

Red like revolution.

A deep Red like memory.

Brownish Red like the soil that swallowed our names

and grew empires

on our backs.

II.

They came with steel-tipped tongues,

forked with greed and scripture,

branding borders onto our bodies

called it map-making,

called it salvation,

called it progress

as if we were standing still.

But even then, Anella whispered

through the veins of griots

and the lullabies of mothers

humming futures into infants’ ears.

III.

Anella faded

not gone,

just smudged by imperial reign.

Whitewashed walls tried to rinse her out

with shame,

with silence,

with colonial ink scrawling

“you are not enough”

across our history.

They thought pigment was power

until they saw how deep color runs

when it’s soul-born.

IV.

Anella is a phoenix in silk form—

every time they try to bleach her,

she returns

more vivid,

more dangerous,

more divine.

She shows up in our fashion,

our protest,

our poems,

our tongues speaking mother languages

like gospel,

our steps dancing ancestral maps

back into existence.

V.

You see

pain has a way of painting over itself

until only power remains.

Anella knows.

She’s worn many names,

bled through generations

just to become

new.

Every.

Time.

VI.

So let them say she’s faded.

We know better.

She’s just been resting

beneath the skin of this century,

waiting for the right moment

to rise

again,

again,

again.

Anella is not gone.

She’s reborn.

More.

Every-time.

Tha Floetress