Female Rage Volume 3: Tawâw Welcome to Canada

If I share these stories I will need to acknowledge hard truths 

Of where you are

And where you’ve been 

And what you’ve seen

And of the ways I have both failed you and loved you 

Of the ways that we created beauty and how that beauty was not enough 

Of the ways in which colonialism daggers into your body and your spirit 

And how our love and wisdom can only half exist 

always seeming to be thwarted by oppression and institutional boundaries 

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me “that’s not our job” “that’s not your job” “that’s not my job” 

i’d have a retirement fund and would have reached the limits of the institution. Bottomed out or smashing my fists against the glass ceiling of colonialism and oppression with nobody left to ask

You’ve done your “job.” You’ve done all you can do. Go home. 

See what I have learned is that what we go through is never anybody's responsibility 

And there’s a righteousness to having boundaries 

And so you spiral through the rabbit hole of this body that is Canada

And I go home to my safe four walls and turn my phone off and prepare myself a meal I don’t even feel grateful for like an asshole. Too exhausted to cook. 

And I think about where you are

and I wonder if you are okay 

My cousin, sweet kiddo, awasis- sacred little relative from the sky world

Unable to come up with much 

I hope your young spirit remembers the love we shared and co-created

Braiding hair, telling jokes, sharing stories 

Offering kindness and gentleness and patience 

Forever hoping that the love I could offer would be enough

Enough for something 

For anything 

For now, part of your story is my anger 

I am angry for you

My anger will fight for you

This anger in response to the world we have inherited

That your little brown body was born into 

Where you are now

Being suffocated by this world

They don’t get to know the details and see you in this way 

For all they need to know is the story of a little girl 

Who would braid hair at pow wows 

Who braided my hair 

Whose hair I braided

She loves music and boys and ridiculously long nails 

Who went to school everyday 

And fancy danced in the summer 

Who picked medicines and taught me Cree words 

And how they failed her 

Tawâw- Welcome to Canada.