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When I went to jail I lost me, I lost my identity and everything I am. I gave up and thought my life was over. I was beaten, assaulted, abused and all of that was before I was locked in that teeny, tiny cage.
And then they locked my cell door and I suffered every type of torment you can imagine behind bars - not the least the plagues that invade your mind, the kind that make you sail your skull willingly into the brick wall of your hard cell....
the grief and melancholy, the loneliness and sadness rested in the wells of my crimson heart as invasive as black spores of mould making home in your lungs. It squeezed the breath from me, down cast my eyes, and forced me to retreat into myself so small I barely raised a whisper
And then my old Leempeen came to me: a quiet, considered woman, she rest her old hands on my knees, looked me in the eye and told me stories of how the fire leaves our lips and we shrink into ourselves, and slouch into our own melancholy.
She growled me & said ‘bpup-bpup ngan, there are people out here with far worse things going on, far worse diseases & far worse wars-far worse addictions & far worse scars, but here you sit, as if you have already died, doing nothing about everything & everything about nothing’.
She said: ‘bpup-bpup ngan, trying to live in a world designed to kill & erase you is tiring…you will come home to country. But until you can rest those feet in cool waters, or lay your head on the leaves under the ancient gneering, or spread the puuyuupkil on your wounds…
...you will be still, and listen, for the ancestors will send messages through the wind and those wings of words will fan a flame that will either light a way, or burn a path depending on what stands before you.’
It was the day that I gathered up all of the ash that was me and decided to make sweet poetry from it.
The darkness no longer haunted me, I just saw stars in it, and let them touch my hair and mostly I let the ancestors fan their flames around me so I was never alone and I rose
The darkness no longer haunted me, I just saw stars in it, and let them touch my hair and mostly I let the ancestors fan their flames around me so I was never alone and I rose
I rose & I never lay back down. I never let their foot rest on my throat or their hands circle my neck. I inhaled & exhaled & with each breath grew taller & stronger.
I am so grateful for the wisdom of our old people.
If we listen, they have all the answers we will ever need
I am so grateful for the wisdom of our old people.
If we listen, they have all the answers we will ever need
