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Classy J Sep 2018
Used to have nightmares all the time, used to see demons in real life.
Used to think I had infinite time, used to be held back by strife.
Uh, elder made me a dream catcher when was young,
when my parents were too busy drowning in the ***,
so I admired the gangs who taught me how to hold a gun.
They told me guns was our only power, our only resistance, because reality is twisted and white man never going to give us
any **** assistance.

(Intro) How do I want to define my existence? How do I achieve My dreams? How can I love others when they scared of me and keep their distance from me? What’s the point of climbing the mountain when God struck me down before I was even half way up? How can I get over addictions when everyone else already gave up on me and won’t lift me up?

Climbing this myth, this illusion, this delusion,
trying to change but how can I?
When my people were put through crucifixion?
My mushim and kokum taught me the way of our people,
but looking back at it now I think I failed my people.

Learned different lessons like yin and yang from friends,
but it’s too late the balance is broken...
this is how our people’s story ends.
That’s just how I feel and with no home I can call my own.
So, I sleep on the streets with a bottle of patron.
Water was supposed to cleanse me, and fire was supposed to warm me, but this fire water is going to be the end of me.
When the colonists came they seemed so sweet like Juliet, but it was all a trick, got poisoned and it was revealed that Juliet was really Brutus to our Julius.
We trusted ****** and look where it got us,
we trusted the church and they molested us.
We trusted the education system,
but they beat us and told us our beliefs and cultures were blasphemous.

They spread their diseases to us, they extended court dates,
so we couldn’t defend ourselves or get reconciliation,
from past callous deeds that were pretty heinous.
Jesus save us, oh wait you brought them to us!
Pride was turned to shame, courage was turned to insecurity, yeah so much for diversity!

The ***** problem, the white man’s burden,
but we are told to just get over it and keep this **** hidden.
So yeah, my dreams and visions of becoming more is no more than an illusion.

Cultures collide and bring forth rigged constitutions.
So, a society develops assumptions and misconceptions,
and it didn’t help that my ancestors had to wait till 1960 to vote in pointless elections.

Elections to decide the next white privileged man to take power,
power that turns good man evil.
Most don’t see or want to see the levels of this status quo devil woe’s, **** ridden covert racist codes.
So, if reality is a nightmare on elm street I’d rather live life short and die quick, and kick the Lord off his high seat.
****, looks like this dream catcher turned out to be Charlotte's web.
Oh, the irony of this misdirect, I thought the dream-catcher was supposed to protect!

But I see know that when you throw out the ***** bath water you also got to throw out the crib!
So now you can see why I can’t get ahead, because white society set up an invisible blockade.
So, sorry if perpetuating the cycle is wrong,
but might as well take my token Indian status and put it into a broken arcade.
For this mountain I’ve been climbing was really a cliff all along,
and society made it pretty clear that I don't belong.
So, I have no choice but to sing my Farewell song.
For the time of the Indian is dead and gone!
Reza Raad Jun 2021
"Things are good
kids are happy and divine
the past is gone
stick to the present
look forward
history is complicated
and tangling
Let's build a shining future now!"
and those words hit differently
they hit hard
when Kokum remembers them from a letter the Indian Residential School Principal had sent home one year
Kokum knows what the letter meant by
"happy, divine, past, gone, tangling, and let's build"
They hit hard
Kokum reads them anyway
like she has for years
Oh my child, she says, oh my child, I cannot tell you now how I exactly felt back then
Because they took our words, our ways!
Can you look into my eyes?
they carry the truth
they do
Can you hear the mountains weep?
Can you hear the rivers call?
Can you feel the burden in the wind?
Can you hear the mountains weep?!
They carry the truth
They do
They will
Remember, my child, remember!
They took our words
but they cannot take our voice
they cannot take our valor
our willingness to move
to move
move

— The End —