we are no longer surprised
not for years
not for generations

you have tried every which way
to strip us of the miraculous
to slice it from us, the future
to leave us without the womb
into which a next world can be born

you want to cover the sky
deny us the sun
we see you casting smoke against our visions
still we feel our way
you slick shit waste oil into our veins
we drag it all the way down and turn it into algae
eaten by, eaten by, eaten by the
market rate fish you overpaid for
back, back all the way into your throat
and you think it’s delicious

you have no idea
what it takes to protect magic
yours was damaged centuries ago
you think it is gone
we know it is not
you are just settling for the smallest
shortest version of delight
the bloody meal in your hands
while we set a decadent table
for our children

listen
you will never, ever, ever disappear us
we are beyond borders, categories,
names you mispronounce trying to steal them
for your streets and creeks
we are beyond your bars, walls, and limitations

listen
you will never, ever, ever erase us
we are known to the roots of the trees
loved by the sediment which listens
to the stories our cells tell as they
slough off our corpses

listen
you will never, ever, ever best us
we don’t retire when we die,
we come back to keep you hungry
when you’re so rich you can no longer taste
to keep you lonely
when you have everything that everyone wants
to keep you working
when no effort can satisfy you
to keep you fighting
over imagined spoils

listen
you will never, ever, ever be free
when you knot yourself to everything you touch
with the word mine, mine, mine
foolish is a lineage that tries to pass along
anything more than lessons
everything is made of everything don’t you see
you are as precious as any stone don’t you see
you are as sacred as any text don’t you see
you are as holy as any treasure don’t you feel
you are as gorgeous as any ruin

listen
run away from the cages that make you believe you have to lie to belong

listen
the reason you will never be superior is because it is in itself the lowest form of existence,
you are swimming towards the sewer
can’t you smell yourself

listen
inside of you is a seed that can only be released
by burning down the horrific separateness
of privilege
inside of you is a prophecy that can only be heard after the words: I was wrong

listen
I was wrong
we were wrong
our ancestors, we must say it
some of us have ancestors
who were so wrong
in so many ways
and now here we are
less and less days left in which
we can turn the tide
I feel grief welling up inside
so much grander than I can hide
for all that we’ve tried
as our species has bloomed
but in the same arc,
died

listen
we will never, ever, ever surrender
our story isn’t one short lifetime long
your horrors are not contained by an empire
you are the shadow of our own eclipse
and you are the only one
scared of the dark

listen
we hibernate and heal during dark ages
until you forget the world used to revolve
around mothers
until you forget how a spell is just
earth and breath joined across a tongue
until you forget how a finger or a look can be a wand
and the earth can tell you how to burn
and how to grow and when to harvest
and what it is to love as mother birds,
as a lioness, as peach against teeth,
as flower following sun
how a stand of trees teaches us family
how a ghost teaches us devotion
yes until you forget that ancestors walk with us
and guide us and make us dream
until we see the truth of it all
how we are each of us a pulse
in the singular life of the divine
unable to comprehend how beautiful
it is to take one, whole, perfect, never again breath
.
.
.
until you forget how we are all
part
of god

9/15/20

(see/hear this read on my instagram account)