Gimikwenden ina?
Do you remember
that even smashed it's reassembled.
Someone bring the glue.
You, too, glue yourself together.
__________________________
“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with
stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.
They make one story become the only story.”
―
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
___________________________
I showed you the word.
You said
It's just a word.
Words don't mean anything.
Have you no respect for the letters, one following another, that have to hold so much?
Gimikwended ina?
I took the tablets I made to commemorate
minobimaadizin
and struck them down.
What right have I to that word?
It rarely snows here,
so my tears will have to fall like rain.
My tears here are equally cold, but without their white-starred complexity.
I simply weep here, a salty sea
for every one and thing suffering everywhere.
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I don't want to be your relative, family of man,
said the sheep.
You are a family full of murderous intentions, arrogant and ungrateful.
Leave us be,
said the clouds.
We aren't interested in your revelatory self-reflections.
Calma, calma,
said the far-off stars.
They are each briefly bright before they dim to nothingness.
