Trey Knowles — “Prisoners of War”
We were indigenous people, dependent on God, living among our tribes, rooted in the land, breathing freedom without chains, without bills, without debt, without masters. We worked the soil with our hands and fed our families with what the earth provided. We walked in balance. We carried spirit. We were a holy people. Then one day the enemy came, not with peace but with fire, with steel, with lies, with hunger for power.

They stole our land, they killed our elders, they destroyed our villages, and they turned human beings into property. They beat us until our backs were maps of suffering. They raped our women and shattered our families. They hung us on crosses and trees as warnings. They stripped away our names, our languages, our identities, and forced us to speak their words, worship their systems, live by their rules.

They treated us like animals, branded us, sold us, caged us, and demanded that we call them “master” while they played God. They did not only steal our bodies — they attacked our minds, poisoned our culture, erased our history, and worked to rip the image of God out of us. Now our children grow up confused, disconnected, searching for themselves in broken systems that were never built for them.

They learn to love chains they cannot see. They accept the ways of the beast: greed, violence, division, addiction, hatred, and emptiness. We are still bleeding from wounds that never healed. We are still fighting battles that never ended. We walk free in name but bound in spirit. This is not just history — this is warfare. This is generational. This is psychological. This is spiritual. We are survivors, but we are also captives. We are standing, but we are still under occupation. We are breathing, but we are not fully alive. We are a people stolen from ourselves. We are prisoners of war.