Cuando era niña, mi mamá told me to speak in spanish cuando I couldn't say mis "r"s en inglés.  Garlic made my mouth stink from the broth I drank when sick, so I ate spicy things to soothe my throat.  Muchas veces comímos tamales por la Navidad.  Cuando era niña, creí que era mexicana, pero soy blanca.  Y tengo miedo de hablar español en frente de los nativos y no sé como mostrarlos mi habilidad real.  En el fín, soy una wera, y más que eso, soy francés, y más que eso, soy alemán, and more than that, I'm finnish.

I tried to take pride in my heritage and learn this obscure language.  I tried to find similarities in appearance and personality.  I boasted of this culture that I so wanted to love and be a part of.  I thought I'd found my viking roots but no one around me cared.  I learned "tourist finnish" and forgot it because I couldn't practice.  I read the Kalevala and laughed at old newspaper articles about the joke of "St. Uhro's Day."  I pointed out weird translations in songs due to too many syllables, but in the end, I was too many generations away from being truly finnish.

Why are there so many poems about love?  Maybe it's because when we're in love we stop searching for somewhere to belong because we've found someone to belong to.  I've found my person but not my people.  I've been to seven schools and cried each time I left because I lost those I had tried to make into my extended family.  I try to fit in with so many groups because I feel like I never fit in with just one and in the end I'm on the outskirts.  We have so few people come to holidays and none of them really ever talk with me.  I have a mother but she's an island in a sea of lost chances and forgotten ties.  We seek love to have a claim to something but I've had to learn that I can lose that, too.  I strive for heritage to make up for family dysfunction.  In the end I am white, or rather, white-washed.  I was born without ethnic belonging and have not belonged ever since.

we've not had much trouble finding our land, but that doesn't make it a world.
we have the firm foundation of love and we've learned how lost i become if i try to leave it.

however, sometimes, when the ground is so built up beneath me i stand on a mountain and at such altitudes the air is thin.

the wind brings me soft caresses and subconscious gestures that blow away my fears and deliver hope

I was always taught that air fanned fire, but that doesn't always happen.  Take this chill from my heart, burn off the stains left by others and show me that i can experience this heat and desire with someone who wont hurt me.  Crack my back against the wall and devour me in the flames that i might be born again.

I've never been fond of water, of that inexplicable eternity of life but the waves do not suffocate if you hold me up, and we can get through it together so long as we have air to breathe, fire to warm, and land to return to in this, our new world.

Have you noticed that the most influential spoken word artists out there are lesbians?

Maybe that's because only someone who loves women and is a woman can truly understand how to heal a woman.

Maybe it's because we deal with so many downcast looks that we've had to break the chain.

So many of the best speakers and poets take on a certain pattern that I thought was the sexiest thing and couldn't quite understand.

And then I realized it was confidence.  That's why although my speaking voice may be low and crass as soon as I talk about something I care about I just speak and let my own voice calm my fears.

Maybe that's the secret, we are the children left to self-soothe or those who learned too quickly to have to soothe another.  

We weep for the world that many think wouldn't bat an eye for us.

Let me tell you this, my love makes me feel closer to god than any bigoted church and my tranquility is found in her presence.

Let me tell you that I would fight to ensure that all women, all people can stand tall and if it takes some husky girl with short hair and glasses to show  a woman that she doesnt need make up then so be it.

But neither I, nor the most influential person of our time can make a woman love herself if she doesnt want to.

Dear, you have to love yourself and stop fighting it, stop denying yourself happiness because its the only thing you can control.

Stop going to others for help if you're not going to listen, stop sitting alone if it doesn't solve your problems.

Realize that only you can turn your ember into a beacon and you owe it to that little girl full of hope and wonder that you once were to become something better than a liar who's too scared to be happy.

Learn to speak with the voice of all those activists you admire and learn to believe in all the fairy tales you laugh at but learn that only you can save yourself.

Learn like I did, even if you didn't learn it from me.

I am a bird flying towards an instinctual destination and sometimes I lose sight of the ground.
Sometimes I carry quite a heavy burden.
In my claws I carry my achievements: the things I wish to present to show my worth.
In my beak I carry my soul for to share with those I love.
At my side flies my flock but sometimes there are problems better solved on your own.
On my wings I carry all my misdeeds, my misgivings, all my pain. Sometimes I can regrow flight feathers when they are broken but the load I carry puts me off balance and I still can’t fly well.
Only with rain can sin and regret be washed so I sought out rain so that I could move on to my destination and be cleansed.
In her presence it finally rained and for an instant I wondered if I could have been cleansed any other way.
I had made myself anew but she gave me a new beginning.
I don’t know if I should keep flying with her. Sometimes I think she’s my salvation
Sometimes I’m afraid another storm will follow
I could fly on without burden, alone, I could fly healthily with her. Sometimes the way ahead was clouded, and now the sun is shining and I am at peace.
One day I’ll have to make a decision, but for now, I am a bird flying towards and instinctual destination far away and sometimes it’s best not to think, not to ask or decide, but just to fly.