how do you draw power
from your land
when it has been taken

                                         taken

                                                       taken
and you taken from it
displaced into violence

The rage, the grace, and the ferocity in between,
This relationship promised, to be nothing but pristine,
Calling out to me desperately, yearning to meet,
Now this is a bond, to which I could always retreat.

There it goes navigating, through the undergrowth,
Creating dense and lush bonds, tied by an eternal oath,
A stream giving life, to everything in its path,
This is a land that lives, beyond the clusters’ aftermath.

The stream takes us, to the hinterlands of civilization,
Technology absent, in the face of more than one distraction,
The blood red soil, furnishing the steady stilt houses,
This is where humanity comes to life, in many disguises.

Ambition stronger, than a finely brewed espresso,
A life seeped in tradition, transcends the status-quo,
Manifesting in the coffee, that shoulders the community,
The elements convene here daily, with sincere loyalty.

you
     non-
colonizer

friend, companion, self-intellectualizing

non-
      colonizing
colonizer

who loves, cares, hurts
              [ me ]

lays an offering
of violence
                  at
                     my
                         feet

non-
     colonizing
colonizer

this is how you love
           [ me ]

Because I Am Indigenous.

There’s always a brume of skepticism (of fear) that will loom like a fly,
Slightly past 9:30pm on a Friday and the twilight is taking the sky
I find myself reciting; “It’s too dangerous. It’s too dangerous.”
I feel this way because it’s another day with another alert on the news broadcast; another “missing person’s” poster hanging on the bleak walls,
The articles are increasing while the fight to battle against it is decreasing,
We attend more social gatherings where we mourn more than we celebrate;
We mourn, can’t you hear us?  
Our missing indigenous women;
Of injured sisters, mothers, Aunty’s and cousins.
Of our murdered women.

There’s so much injustice and shame in our system,
Our voices get silence and we get dismissed with one wave of your ******* palm and no second glance.
Shame.

Because I am Indigenous,
My cultural beliefs are frowned upon; my healing ceremonies that takes away the discrimination toxicity, my herbs that help heal my throat that’s yelling at you to listen,
My prayers in my two native tongues for those effected by your colonialism.
My cultural heritage that is label as witchcraft and locked away in shelves cloaked by their leatherback book that they hold so close to their sinful chests

And dangling cross.

Colonialism.
Discrimination.

Because I am Indigenous woman,
I am afraid to walk alone.

Because I am Indigenous,
I am afraid to be a victim of a hate-crime.

Because I am Indigenous.

I am also resilient.