Tag: Colonialism

Worth

~ Vanessa ~ 1 Comment

I want to know of my ancestors.
Yet the epic of colonialism,
Has for generations,
On multiple lines, kept faces, names, and ties
From kith and kin;
Kept us inextricably separated by imagined borders;
Separated with skins and flags of
fabricated colors;
Holding weapons and wealth
Unequal, unequitable,
As motive
For a status quo of harm,
Because just maybe one day
One of “us” will be on the “winning” team,
With change in pocket
And blood on hands;
Yet when in the moment of judgment
Will you be able to
Confess honestly
If any of it was worth it,
As we finally face our
Ancestors.

Yet

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment

Performative, superficial.
Bandaid for a gaping wound.
The warriors cried,
the elders cried,
the parents,
the children,
and now Mother Earth cries.

Spirit watches
over children made capable
of atonement,
This day
is an attempt,
Though never enough,
to salve the genocide bled;

Yet

Stolen

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment

They are unearthing babies,
Children
Who never had a chance,
Against a system we still don’t understand,
That takes and takes and takes,

My human heart hurts,
My sentient heart hurts,
My living heart hurts,
For a wrong far too late to correct,
And as the numbers tally up
Let us not lose sight of the numbers that are really lives,
Of the lives that were not lost
But taken
Stolen,
Genocide in and of our recent time,
And we haven’t learned our lesson,
As we hold stolen children,
This time immigrants in cages,
For being the wrong…
Color,
Creed,
Nationality,
Ethnicity,
Race,
An inconvenience to other plans,
Inconvenience in this land,
Stolen,
Stolen lands,
Stolen children,
Stolen lives

Pre-Colonial Truths

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment

Daughter of an immigrant,
Callouses of colonial bonds keep me tethered,
To a past always out of touch,
Wanting to know my people,
Longing for a home that has been fragmented,
I am perpetually in mourning,
Of what truths,
now post-colonial,
I can never know.

The Illusion

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment

There has been a crack
In me
And I am open,
Yoke exposed,
I am taking in, taking on, trying on
The world in ways I’ve never before seen,
And I am aware of
The illusion in which we swim,
I am aware,
And tempted to scream it from the mountain tops,
But that is not my mission,
I thought knowledge was,
My mission involves learning
To swim through the illusion in a different way,
I have not found out yet how,
But I am open,
Finding pieces of my broken shell,
And reassembling self,
Equipping for this mission,
To be in and of the world,
To simultaneously see, not see, taste, touch, and transform the illusion.

Reparations

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment

We don’t belong here,
Most of us,
All of us,
We are squatters,
Claimants to possessions,
To lives, to land,
To stories that are not ours,
That are not meant to be owned,
And still we are a legacy,
Of conquerors,
Thefting still,
Without acknowledgement,
Often without knowledge,
Of the very sins we are committing,
This is our history,
Our story,
The ending is never written,
It is living by our means
And I wish to live love
And reparations into this Act.