☊ ethnocide in foggy bottom

something about tuesday morning humidity

& flowered 3 tiered skirt - wrinkled

are you a real native american?

you’re not like one of those like half ones right? you’re a full one?

when did my culture become a privilege?

to wear wrinkled skirts and play navajotoddler on the metro from dulles airport

when did my blood become questionable?

to have men ask me for my halves & quarters of a life - i live in full

being owned by a name reflecting forced erasure of my grandpa’s life

when they put those names on the board to choose from- did they do so in the name of liberation?

im sure they would have named geronimo- war criminal- in the washington post

and everyone wants us on the committee for their diversity grants

but apache girls are married to water

the stretch marks on my stomach, that wrap across my body and light across my arms-

roots that soak up water

born into the land and birthgiving

and we die on this land

and we die to live on this land, we die trying to survive with the land, we die for the right to vote

and we died to be killed and we die to have the right to die sovereign and we died to watch people die on

X and die under the palm of amerikkka and we die in schools made to ‘“save” us and we die under a

pledge and children die for their liberation and die from being shot in school and die trying to help others

not die. we die under “threat” and we die quietly and we die loudly we die in love with the fight to live

and we die living and we die.

we die. we die. we die.

we die.

and im apache and navajo so i need to stop being taboo

but our languages die a bit more everyday, our land gets killed everyday, our sovereignty killed and left

and

this is living post apocalypse.

this is the geist of the western home

hole

the threats to nation threats to country threats to life threats to sovereignty threat to diplomacy threats

and there are threats everyday,

there is always another reason

always another reason for empire to expand

but there never seems to be a reason for empires to focus on matters in their own backyard

empires never speak on the lands they already have controlled

unable to say our own true names

unable to say bisan owda stephon clark christian angulo

cole bringsplenty breonna taylor emily pike

unable to say dystopia unable to see the pharmakon

siri- how long does it take for empires to die?

and i wish my right to autonomy didn’t die when columbus came and i wish all halves of me didn’t die

with my CIB

and i wish everyone knew we lived

and i wish people knew i am alive

that mouths could say more than

thoughts and prayers

never again,

never again,

never again,

never again

but nothing changes on the backs of a hole founded on death

home