The color of the treasure may have changed,
But the tactics are all the same.
First come the discoverers, then the mercenaries, followed by the soldiers to "protect" us, for we know not what we have.
They come to "protect" and "civilize" us.
To save us from our wild savage ways.
Be it 1492, 1851, 1975, or 2016
The goal is all the same.
**** the Indian, Save the Man.
**** the Indian, Save the Man.
We're still thinking we're seen as that man,
But THEY are all part of that clan.
We are The Humans, The Protectors, we are The People, just as all of our languages remind us.
We are the children of the Earth.
Now the cycle has come again.
First came the discoverers,
And we prayed.
Then came the mercenaries,
And we reasoned.
Do more than just dance this time my people...
The soldiers are coming.
The color of the treasure may have changed,
But the tactics are all the same.

Mni Wiconi

-KB 2016
Cante Waste Mani Kici Win

They come for us when we're lost
When we're hurting and forget our path
They show up and stand next to us
Hold our hands and speak to our hearts
We are never alone in this journey
They are always right there
Waiting, listening, watching
Standing strong so we always remember
So we feel them in our blood and we know
We are one
We are The People
And they, are still here

-KB 2016

The full moon rises marking another month has gone,
And still I miss you.
The sun awakens a new day,
And still I miss you.

-KB 2016

I felt for the warmth of your palm against the doorknob gone cold
Searched out your fingerprints etched into the dust
Crisp leaves had made their home in the foyer
Crunching under foot
Listening for the steps to be yours
The hearth gone quiet...cold
These memories of you
Surviving in our eternal Autumn

As you spoke those precious words, the ocean in me calmed and came alive all at once.  
My heartbeat created a wave that shifted the pull of the moon.  
My night skies lit up and stars paled in comparison to the depth of love in your eyes.  
In only a second of time, all I knew had forever changed.  
The indifference I had surrounded myself with melted and caverns to bury my soul filled.  
The gift of you illuminated all confusion and in that moment, I was safe.

-KB 2016

I heard your voice thru my desperate screams
So I clawed thru my ravaged soul
Just to stand by your side
I admired my own carnage
And handed you my heart

Coffee black, is like bitter water
Too quick
Too much hot liquid
No mystery to it

I like my coffee with cream
Powdered cream that adds the smallest bit of thickness
To the dark water
Followed by a shot of flavor
Flavor that unfolds with warm beauty when it
Flows over your tongue

As though the flavor will also enhance the next words
To leave your lips
Words kissed with sweetness and warmth
A soothing coat to quiet any bitterness

You know you have enough cream in my coffee
When it matches the color of his skin
Caramelly, earthen, warm, silken...
Smooth like the swirls of the spoon as you stir
Sweet like his warm lips sweeping over mine
Warmth that flows over the tongue
Glides down the throat
Enveloping the sleeping parts and kissing them awake

I love cream in my coffee in the mornings.

I wonder who I would be if I had never been told to stop singing so loudly.
Melodies and lyrics that used to come from my heart filling my chest until they fell from my mouth dancing around my tongue.
Belted out loudly because I wanted the earth to know that I could hear her songs and wanted to offer my voice so everyone else could hear too.
What if it had been understood that I was coping with the separation from my mother and loss of my father?
Would I speak more freely now?
Would my throat open instead of shut down and deny that I ever knew how to sing?
Would my hum be a roar?

Who would I be if I had been encouraged to continue to paint?
Continually inspired to find expression in color and shape.
Reminded that the mysterious blots always created some type of magnificence.
How much more free would my soul be if the color spectrum had not been drained from my childhood world?
Placed with a family that didn't believe in nature, or color, or freedom.  
Forced into black and white with not even gray.  
Would I still be dripping and swiping across a blank canvas and know how to pull colors from emptiness?
Would I be unafraid?

How much stronger would I be if I hadn't been told to be quiet when my insides were screaming that something was wrong?
Would my boundaries be stronger?
Would my voice be louder?
How much space would I be comfortable taking up if I hadn't been taught to cower?

How much more open would my heart and comfort be if motherhood had not been torn away?
If I had never been told I wasn't enough?
Or I was too young?
What if motherhood had not been taken from my arms while milk dripped from my ******* and my heart was all I was allowed to send with him?
No one asks about the birth mom...they just move on because she's a vessel for someone else's happiness.
What if I had been supported?
Would it be easier to feel close to
Or good enough for my children now?
Would I feel unafraid of being accepted by them?
Would I tear myself apart less?
Would I not worry they'd be better off with my partner if something happened to me?  Or to us?
No one ever asks about that story.
Not even when they see their own children and understand that kind of love.
They never see how fragile I was left.  
How heartbroken.
No one has ever been careful around me.

What if my strength, independence, spirit, voice, or intelligence, had been respected?
What if I had been celebrated and pushed into that growth?
What if I hadn't been held down or been too much?
What if my fire had been tended?

Who would I be if I hadn't been the only one to hold onto me?

She is not gone, you know
She can't be
She's too selfish to fully let go
She's too good at justifying her hidden delicacies

She can still hear you
Still feel you
Still knows what you're thinking
When you're thinking it
Sometimes she uses her magic to make it so
Though she's too protective to ever let anyone else know

She manipulates the wind
Makes it carry her secrets up to the stars
So they twinkle with her intentions
Until she is a random thought stealing into your brain
Your heart
Your sleeping soul
Your aching bones

You know...
Those parts she claimed
When you so willingly signed them over to her
As her name brushed over your lips
In an exhale of relief
She kept those

She never intended to give them back
That was in the fine print of the contract
When you began the conversation
You're hers
You always will be

You could be with a hundred others
And still...
Those secrets
That touch
That quiet
That...

It's hers
It will always be hers
She's too selfish to let it go
And she's far too protective of her delicacies

The moon is beautiful tonight.
Full like the womb of a mother.
Growing and giving life.
Waiting to birth a new cycle.
Cycles that change the tides.
Wash away the old.
Birth in the new.
The moon is radiant and glowing.
Spreading light in the darkest of moments.
She exists so we know we are never lost.
She births hope.
Regeneration.
Cycles.
The moon is beautiful tonight.

Sometimes I still miss my father
I daydream of what his words might have been
I imagine that he is having a conversation with me
Or that he's painting with my sons
Maybe teaching them how to fix a car
Or build a motorcycle
I envision him sitting around the living room
Or kitchen table
Maybe sitting out back with us having his morning coffee
Caught up in one of the many
Indigenous people's issues we talk about regularly
My father who always claimed he was born to the wrong body
He was meant to be a native man
He'd been saying it since he was 6 years old, his mother tells me
That's why he was only ever with indigenous women
I picture his smile
His laugh
What his movements might have looked like
I don't question whether or not he'd be proud of me
I know that answer
I do wonder if it ever makes him sad that he can't be here
He can't interact with his grandchildren
or me
or my husband
this family that he always wanted
He can only watch through that impossibly thin veil
Sometimes I can feel when he's near
Occasionally that makes it harder
Sometimes I even feel him and my father in law together
Hanging out like a couple of old native guys
Laughing at our craziness
Shaking their heads at us
Wishing we knew how close they were to us
We're almost at another Autumn Equinox
The veil is getting thin
I always feel them when it's like this
So incredibly close
Separated by nothing more than a veil

As I stood in a room with death today, she spoke of meaningful things. Peace and life and love and loss.  She grabbed my hand and said "do not rush to me, for I will meet you at your time.  Stop giving your power to the little things and don't let them tell you you're blind. Your cross, your bag, your little flag have no meaning with me. What comes is your soul, the spirit inside, that's all that I can see. For I am nothing to fear as long as you've known yourself. When your time comes accept my hand and leave proud of what you have done."  

My advice to you, as it was given to me, is to honor your soul inside. It's what was here before and all that will be left after to join the earth we come from. I shared the air and touched the skin of death today and saw how much life there is.  Don't waste your time feeling lost, just choose your path.  Don't judge the face or body in the mirror, for it is a literal shell that you do not keep. Cultivate who you are inside like a newly planted seed, and when your time comes, leave being a mighty tree to be given back to Mother Earth.

I beg of you to destroy me
To take the pieces left of my heart
To ruin them
So I may look back on this moment
So I can remember the way you looked at me
Your caresses along my body
Your fingertips across my cheek
Your beautiful hands through my hair
So I can drown in your scent
And burn in the memory of your spirit
Destroy the last vestiges of my heart
So I can look back on such beauty
And say I was loved
And I loved
So much, I was destroyed

-KB 2016

There is an ache in my chest that will not fill.
I can only assume it is because you are missing from me.
I feel you as you are away.
Missing your voice.
And a life I have not known.
I find myself wondering if I am selfish.
If this life is meant for me,
Or if you are a beautiful fantasy.
Have I only dreamt of this warmth as yours?
Am I so deluded in my day dreams that I cannot see reality anymore?
You are missing from me.
And the loss is tangible.
I feel it with every heartbeat.
This pain.
This hole.
This ache.
Is this the emptiness of you?
Or the emptiness of me?

-KB 2016

Can you hear them?
An entire language
Words pounding at the dam
Throwing themselves against the solid walls
Desperate to break it down
Soon they'll overflow

Soon all the words that haven't been said
They'll come flooding out
Washing over everything that has and hasn't been
Years of thoughts all rushing

But that doesn't mean they'll be heard
There will be hidden messages
Secrets that aren't meant for working ears
Or seeing eyes
They'll break through in codes
Codes that only whisper
Letters that jumble and misshape
With funny accents and curves
And ink that disappears

Can you hear them?
The poetry
The stories
All the letters threatening to
Flood through their silent prison
They're going to break down the walls
They're going to overflow
They're going to sing
To write
And then disappear

Like the drum of the earth
Her heartbeat guides him home
Reminding him of who he is
Where he's from
The strength of his blood
As he travels afar
Learning the lessons that come
Letting go of what is no longer needed
Forging his way through
Until he is back in her arms
Near to her heart
Close to her breath
His woman he calls Home

-KB 2016

Hope is lost in the heart
In the visions of innocence plundered
In the war cries of the proud
In the hate filled screams of the wicked
Hope is what is looked toward to be the light
But the darkness calls
And not all who heed her cry
Can find their way in her beauty
They are consumed and lost in her
Torn by her thorns
Mesmerized by her misunderstood power
Hope is lost in age
In fear
In ignorance
Hope, that one guiding light
Destroyed by men
And sought by soldiers

-KB 2016

I thought I was doing it right
Loving and caring
Protecting and nurturing
But it was not these things that you wanted
You did not want my watchful eye
You did not want my encompassing embrace
You wanted "freedom"
I offered you food
You preferred drink
I offered you health
You preferred death
I offered you home and hearth
You preferred open night skies
I offered you me
You preferred her
I offered you words
You wanted silent acceptance
I thought I was doing it right
Loving you the best way I knew how
Little did I know my love was too heavy
Too much
And too late

Don't add kindle to the fire
She's sleeping right now
Her sleep is calm and safe

Her fire, when lit,
It burns too bright
It calls the spirits to dance
The soul to enliven
Her flame is gentle kisses
To all the deepest darkest parts

See her quiet and calm
She is just a candle
A gentle glow in the dark room

Don't add kindle to her fire
Her burn is that of life
Life that seethes into your veins
Veins that had been hardened by life
Her fire is fresh vitae

Her flame burns the old
Demands the new
Makes all around her a Phoenix
Live! She demands it!

But, you always did like to play with fire...

Wake up little bird
The sun is shining
Wake up little bird
I have food for your belly
Wake up little bird
Your song is missing
Wake up little bird
Your cage is too quiet

Little bird,
Are you there?
Little bird,
Have you lost your song?
Little bird,
Little bird?

Don't leave me in this silence.

Beyond the facade of love, lies the desire for normalcy and freedom.  
An aching yearning for the self, but the self with another.  
The self with a partner.  
That other that fully embraces
          and accepts without
                  judgement or
                      withholding.  
The other that loves,
         but does not need.  
           That needs,
         but not too much.  
All this is covered in love desired.  
We want to love,
       but we want to be free,
                and is there freedom in love?  
Is there not a freedom,
    but with limits
          because there must also be respect.  
Am I not me,
         but I'm the me that I am with you and isn't that a different me?  
For truly,
       you wouldn't want the all of me,
               there are far too many critiques.  
Too many judgments.  
        Too many thoughts that invade the space of my personal realm,
               the one that used to just be me,
                     but I let you in because I love you
                               and I want to be me with you.  
Does this mean you are not you?  
What has this done to the you that I knew?  
How has the me changed you in such a way?  
And now are we just us?  
Is this a facade covered in the language of love?  
            Have we gone mad?  
                  Completely lost ourselves?  
                         Has freedom escaped,
and yet we fight for this new us because it feels good
           and bad
                    and happy
                            and angry all at once?  
This adventure,
         this experience,
                this thing.  
So many consistent inconsistencies,
    but I love you so I navigate them.  
I fight for the me that I knew so well,
   but I love you and so I'll fight to be the me you want me to be.  
So am I still me?  
        Are you still you?  
                    Or are we now us in this language of love?

-KB 2016

His pull was undeniable by her
She felt it across the vastness

I feel the beauty of the earth all around me.
I listen as her children awaken.
The winged,
The two legged,
The four legged.
She sings her morning song
In the gentle breezes
Flowing between the leaves on the trees,
And I know I am a part of her
My heart the drum to her melody

-KB 2016

Can't you hear them?
The screaming
The madness
The fear

Like a knocking at your brain
Demanding to be heard
Can't you hear them?

Their voices
Reaching like hands from the grave
Ready to pull you under
Into tumultuous rage

Clothes shredding beneath fingernails
Wraiths twisted faces
Staring you cold with empty eyes

They don't even bother to hide
They wait beside the bed
Not having the consideration
To be beneath it

Can't you hear them?
Circling around and around
Until bile threatens to expel

Make it stop
Make it stop
Quiet the torture
This dizzying torment

Can't you hear them?
These monsters beyond the veil

Let's have more of those safe conversations
You know the ones
Where we talk about music and writing
The ones that an onlooker would think are meaningless

Let's have more talks of coffee
And games
Of the weather

Let's have more talks of nothings
The ones where each word
Unfolds into another language

The language of great poets
The ones that capture the broken
With blunt eloquence
The ones that describe the desire
With the sharpest point of their pen

Let's revel in the riveting
The poignant
The masters of poetry

Let's have more safe conversations
Because we talk of the most unsafe of nothings

The pen that fell spilled my words onto the carpet
I watched them seep into the threads
Painting a distorted picture
Blots of ink made Warshak tests
Out of my pretty phrases
My
     rhymes
               My  
                  deeper
                            meaning
                                         lines

Just shapes of black across the unforgiving selfish floor
Evil pen that divulged my secrets
Hiding love language and spells into careless synthetic blend fibers

Perhaps it was jealous that its magic only worked in my hands
When my fingers stroked its shaft
Until it exploded with graceful,
                                               powerful,
                                                       unforgiving,
                                                                descriptive,
                                                                         colorful,
                                                                             life giving,
                                                                                   life taking,
                                                                                        incantations

******* pen that stole my voice
The one that those without ears can hear
My silent screaming acquaintances
How grateful I was that you were my safe space to speak
Our secret languages
That give color and life to the world
We who are unafraid to feel

But that ******* pen silenced me.
For years I've been quiet
Watching conversations
                           words...
                               letters....
                                     songs....

But you know what?  
**** that pen