LOVER

Truth be told

Love is the sequencing of medicine stories

it is healing room to call back the moon 

love is an apology bridge over trouble water 

love never lies 

always communicates 

has no gray area, and flashdance flashy 

love is a fuzzy friendship blanket

it is grandma's cookie dough beatitudes hug 

grandfathers onyx stargazing smile 

love is a frankincense southern starry sky  

it is a two-year-old craving pancakes on Saturday morning 

gives shelter to lost raven tears 

love will be a sister to sister lifeline 

a city park playdate

love hangs on, even when our hands are bleeding 

it's a rollercoaster souvenir 

gives our heart sustenance 

it is nickle and wrinkle free 

never losing its carnival wonder 

and always find its way to a holy fountain 

on peachtree street

 

- Nikki Byrd

 

 

It's a good day to die

People revere Greta while revering her indigenous peers is too much. Honoring them means learning of their mammoth traumas, and the ways we are complicit. The daily truth of that is too graphic for people with the random, unearned privilege  of supremacy/security. Ignoring indigenous realities tilts one out of right relationship with earth, with tragic results (see: now). People who romanticize Native ways who don't make room in their hearts for Native battles are dangerous. All the sage in the world won't purify them, all the dreamcatchers hanging dead from their rearview mirrors