haikiri

[haikiri]

What you won’t do, you do for love

[haikiri]

4

I am

Mescalito's daughter

Cuyà del Tonal

Meztiza resurrected

This poem has four languages

One for every direction

Two colonial

Proof that blood has been through violence

Two ancient

Proof that we are still here

Today, a Nierika came to me after constant tapakwiniya

Caminando como Mara'akame desplazada

Iyari escapes me

Tierra madre,

Ni mitz yolmajtok

This diaspora rots me from the inside

But if I listen,

A pesar del dolor

I can hear a whisper

Ximeua

Ximijyoti

Xiixuetska

Uan xijnemilli xinejnemi

Daughter of the Sun and Wind,

This is only the beginning

[haikiri]

In these foreign countries I die a slow death. I am tempted to end it on my own terms.

I watch my brother and mother; how their lupus and cancer manifested as a response to their experiences... I vowed I’d never let that happen, but the laws of motion and energy said otherwise; there are some things that I am too late to change.

I want to end it on my own terms.

Death taps me gently on the shoulder, telling me that freedom awaits with an outstretched hand.

I want to follow.

[haikiri]

If you leave me now...

[haikiri]

I cherish you too

[haikiri]

We claim to strive for a better world yet we are so quick to respond to violence with more violence...

[haikiri]

It’s 1am

This week I’ve faced up against police brutality, attempted suicide, children being assaulted in juvenile detention, all-white crowds at poetry readings, community meetings, writing heavy reports, officially agreeing to author two children’s books and more. I’ve had a beautiful weekend with a beautiful man and I have dug up the strength to continue resisting fiercely.

I have so much to think about and yet my mind is with you when I wish it would at least be with him, if anyone. He is a healer, an artist, a father and a thinker... A man I should really be falling for despite knowing that I’ll push him away before he gets the chance to know me.

You... don’t even exist. Which parts of you were even real? How much of it was a lie?

I’m here, thinking of you, missing you, and using every ounce of my willpower to not send you a message because I know nothing good will come of it. Still, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve pushed away the only mind I know that speaks the exact language and dialect that I do. What if you really were who you said you were? What if I’ve made a mistake?

Your companionship was the most explosive mental connection I’ve ever experienced. Surely this couldn’t be faked. I know you felt something too. Some people have sparks between them, we had entire thunderstorms. Our bodies pressed against each other like old lovers from a different lifetime. How could that have all been a lie? How did you do it? I must commend you for your skill. You did not get to where you are by mere chance.

I can’t help but wonder if you miss me. And even if you did, what would that mean?

My self control is wearing thin.

[haikiri]

Hurricanes cannot be tamed

They appear and disappear

Of their own will

Wind and weather

I’ve been known to put the entire Pacific

Between me and anyone who gets close

It’s easy to fall in love with the idea of me

So many have

Until they find I’m

Too much woman to hold in their hands alone

Slipping through fingertips and before we both know it

I’m gone again

No reason to stay is a good reason to go

Leave before the roots grow

Leave before the walls come down

Leave before the wedding day

Leave

My shoulders carry the weight of four generations

I am dignified in my walk

Few have felt the weight of

My love is the Pacific Ocean

I want to share my waters with you

Teach me

How to not be wind and disappear

[haikiri]

[haikiri]

[haikiri]

[haikiri]

[haikiri]

I wish. My skin. Didn’t grow rings. Like a tree. Each year. Sand me down. Those four years didn’t happen. Did they? They did. I wish I could take it back. No. I don’t. But I wish the loneliness. Would stop oozing from the bark. These are old wounds. Old wounds.

[haikiri]

The skeletons in my closet hold me tight in spaces where I struggle to breathe

because underneath what I pretend

I'm all cracked up to be

I still wonder if it'll all catch up to me

all these frameworks and academic articulations

Citations and referenced applications

The causation of assimilation

It was die or force yourself into transformation

This is not a metaphore

I clawed my way out of the environment that would've caused my damnation

My location in society

Was a direct corrolation to the cremation of humanity by a capitalist and colonial narration

The same story,

From plantations to call centre stations

We, the people, have always sought liberation

Yet find nothing in an environment of deprivation

So some of us succumb to the temptation of avoiding starvation

By any means necessary

Subsidary income complimented the contemporary way of the world

Reactionary

My excuse was that I was a product of my environment

We moved silent in violent delagations

Miscalculation meant a gun to your head

So I made sure my arithmatic was always seamless

Fearless

I understood the implications of the space that I occupied

But my motivations were human and in my head justified

When poverty traps you you just want to feel dignified

We all did what we could to provide as the spiraling of our life intensified

Jekyll and Hyde relationship to my life at the time

Yet despite all violence the love we had for each other was only solidified

I still love you even if I cross the road to avoid you

Unqualified, unsatisfied, we identified with the only thing society left out for us

And the privileged folks were too preoccupied with their comfort to ever question why

Why we criminalise those who have so little and reach to dark places to survive

Why if you look close, the cops were our customers too

Why the doctors and west side students looked down on us but always came through

Why everyone was buying from us but we were named society's worst

Why affluent polititans would buy

Four up, six down

Then have the audacity

To threaten me

If I didn't perform sexual favors

Why I ain't have the frameworks back then

To expose these political players

How I kept myself safe is a miracle that,

If I was religious,

I might say a prayer

But I stayed alive long enough to use what little I have today be a message conveyer

So now,

It's hard to imagine that that life was me

That's why I say fuck my post-grad degree

That isn't what qualifies me

I refuse to identify with the bougeousie

And that's why we won't connect over 'The Bachelor'

You can take me on dates to fancy restaurants

Use me to rid your heart of your old haunts

But we can't relate if your history is still colonised by white men dreams

Still fooled even when we should all know by now that jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams

Your salary will never impress me if you still exist within the paridimes of mental slavery

Babe, Google is free

There's a thing called critical race theory

And while I criticise academics for appropriating our struggles for their thesis' and degrees

I don't absolve you from not taking the time to read

When your privilege guarantees space for reflection

Stop taking up space and start taking direction from those who live and resist within marginalisation

We see Green politics through colonial lenses

Reduce individual consumption is propaganda that the industrial complexes invented

I’m not saying don’t recycle

But while you do that

Work to destroy the commodity form and police that protect it

End capitalism and its laws of

infinite growth, extraction and exploitation

Almond milk alone won’t save us

Is this too much for a first date?

Looking back I was a cookie cutter outcome of a society that tried to bake me into something to be devoured

This system is hungry

And powerful

But our solidarity

Is a lump in its throat

Our solidarity

Will choke it into asphyxiation

One day

[haikiri]

[haikiri]

You’ll go back to her

And you won’t ever know how I feel.

And who knows... Maybe you feel the same. Perhaps you’re waiting for me to say the word, speak my feelings and tell you that I’d do it... but I’ll never know.

We won’t ever know how beautiful and powerful our union could’ve been. We could’ve moved mountains but instead... you admit to settling for less. Was it fear or familiarity? Is there a difference?

It’s not my business to interfere despite feeling like I’m betraying my own heart by remaining distant and silent in respect of your journey.

It’s just that I’ve never met a mind like yours, with the strength and softness to back the intelligence and analysis you carry. Being with you was such a peaceful experience. Your mind is an endless ocean that has left a salty residue on my skin for life. I still can’t bring myself to share my body with another person after being with you. I have no desire for anything less than the level of intellect that we shared.

Your strength and composure parallels mine. Perhaps it’s egotistical that I admire you so much because your struggle mirrors my own in so many ways despite being so different, but I will happily continue doing so anyway.

What initially made me fearful of giving myself into this, is now the reason why I struggle to let it go. How you keep your dignity within the context that you’re in is beyond my understanding. It makes me marvel at the capacity humans have for strength.

Knowing that, despite your circumstances, you feel the same way about me, is keeping me afloat during these difficult times. You are the epitome of what I could ever want in a partner and your admiration for my mind, body and spirit gives me the strength to never settle for less.

We may never... will probably never ‘happen’ but I know that when I do meet someone, they will be amazing because you’ve raised the bar so high.

This week was difficult and I’m really missing you.

[haikiri]