Disruption
Blue becomes red
Our feet float in a trance sustained by the unknown
Unfathomed, unspoken, imbalanced
Beautiful chaos — stolen, ripped, gripped, yours for the taking
Stripped, yours for the making
Up becomes down, sky becomes ground
Ritual is fetiche, spirit bound, bone crushed
Soul cursed, and culture becomes spectacle
We make garments of ourselves and wear us as costumes to be consumed by the foreign gaze
Intruders invade our space and hold a mirror to our face, we see ourselves through it, through
them within the parameters of a reflection, like our eyes are incapable of knowing
Distorted, disjointed, dismembered
Rendered a fraction of itself
How can one exist as fragments of one’s self?
Loss
A bereft bloodline makes its way into the world
A mourning generation whose very existence is the corpse
A people born at a loss of words, names, things, places
Left for dead
Left to rot
But we
We have never been silent
We have never been still
Our voices run through the rubble and ruin and hold memory like one knows the palm of their
hands
Our tears are held by the sky
A chorus of cries fills the air with despair
May our song wrap itself around your necks and choke you
A shameless pursuit by history
A relentless demand for restitution
May you find no rest until restoration is fulfilled
You have burned our homes and its fire boils our blood
Take me back
Home in the soil that made me
That I may drink of the spirit of those who make me
Let me be with the gods who know me
Home
One
Vessel and message merge to meet at the intersection of re-birthing
One spirit, one voice, many words, a countless people
This life is proof of victory against death, erasure, defeat
The texture of pasts weaved into the textile of collective memory
Creating a unique piece of story
A new beginning in the soil that made me
Drinking from the spirit of those who make me
Among the gods who know me
To sit with what is and look it in the eye.
A homecoming that brings questions and isn’t afraid to seek for answers
We dance on the stage of infinite possibility
One
Reconnected, restored, re-imagined…
This here is a story that refuses to be forgotten