assimilation, immersion

we separate so much between one another lately

"they are a colonizer" "they are an abuser – they need to heal"

i'm hearing / observing person to person perpetuation of our shared nightmares. ones hurting so many two-spirits, women, BIPOCs, neurodivergents, and marginalized peoples. ones hurting ourselves—because we are of each other, and we both feel it—each others humanness.

in these phrases i am hearing, i hear an exception placed: to no longer recognize a person’s humanness. livingness. beingness. spirit. (and i do not mean that in only a spiritual way or singular way of thinking about what spirit means from anyone. i choose to say this word in synonymous thought and feeling – connection for me)

i just…see a lot of hurting when we do not know who people are. within their name. beyond their name. and how it connects to another person. someone we care about. someone who could be us.

i feel violent boundaries.

and with this too, redirected violence onto our young ones and the young within ourselves that we continue to try and hold throughout our lives

i see so many blankets thrown over children . . . as we fuel hate and feel alone

and feel more alone

and scared

and intoxicated in finding "the right thing to do"

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In my community, sometimes I see us put up these fences

sometimes really harshly

I feel them put together by me when I am afraid

and I feel them put together by a relative(s) around me

i feel scared because I can't tell if these fences are just to protect me, when I try to ask and listen for a response from their eyes

i often see the word, Pain and, planning

i don't know what that means

so it feels like typewriting letters in war

but what does that make me to them?

the potential of being our own enemy

...

I feel it especially when I "let someone down”... when I am let down.........when I am abandoned for choosing different... when we abandon because we are afraid of different. afraid of what it might cost us, when there was 10 millions acres of open space for us to live in harmony with for 15,000+ years… and then there wasn't after 2 centuries of arguing for our peoples homelands, 1 century fighting for them, and 300 before that, feeling life quietly shift as warnings of loss snuck up at that same time.

we are so afraid . . . that . . . the moment a youth turns into an adult...there is a shift . . . . I and you . . . feel. . .all over, in which our parents (our aunties our uncles our grown friends and our families -- our relatives --- our communities ----- ...disappear from a role they held onto in our lives . . . and a role they held for us.

these are and were not a role for us to fill as coming elders. these suits we made and pass on now as we leave them on the floor when someone wakes up one day as an "adult" ...are a survival role for us to survive assimilation. to take it the way that seems safest to most, but not enough for oneself.

not of oneself. that's how I feel. and if you don't, that's okay. I am sharing because I don't feel I am alone though.

these roles are for many, but, at the same time...not for one. how can this be?

my brain swoops back and forth in a daze at these thoughts. i can't even put them together that well...because they make my stomache hurt with pain and aches that have sat with us for generations.

the trauma, these wounds, reverberate, sending chills up and down my spine.

I don't trust being a young person because I am told to be more. but in that case, i am leaving myself behind.

many of us may be

i miss my family often

i miss my community elders

and i miss myself – I need to know that the most, because without me, i am not recognizing my connection to others – I cannot be/exist without all of you.

i feel lost

not all the time

but a part of me and i think a part of many of us — when i look in one another's eyes during this fight to stay alive — seem to feel lost.

we are so much more than we are willing to trust right now. we are so many.

i love you all and i will keep trying