Blood Memories: Utopian Longings of Decolonization

In an effort to maintain composure—to keep all my shit together—I choke down the lump in my throat. What might happen if I just slightly open my lips? That tightly wound ball of everything that I can’t say, everything that I don’t know how to say . . . might bubble up my throat, filling my mouth with thick foam. My cheeks would burn from the empty dryness of having so much to say, nothing to say, no way to say. 

I have recently become overwhelmed with a great feeling of loss, absence—a void—a void in my history, in my self. I have the sticky nostalgic residue of a past I have never known on my fingers.

The dark hills of my body have been invaded, mined.

Hundreds of thousands of acres of lush trees

Slashed, ripped up from my thick soil

Bloody roots, my roots, the roots of my people ripped up from my thick skin.

My skin is thick from hundreds of years of the hills of my body being invaded, exploited.

The roots of my trees, of my people, are severed and bloody.

Their blood, the blood of ma Grand-mere. 

 . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I dream of a big breasted brown mama holdingme.

I grasp her charcoal hair and bring it to my face. Her oils

seep into the pores of my lips and I smell

the orange peels on her sweet breath.

She rocks me, and I nestle into the rugged ravines of her arms.

She collects the waves of my bloody tears in her mouth as she thanks

God. Thank God

she has let me come home to her,

Her in me.

Her dark eyes tell me she is healing

me. She plants seeds in my soul to grow back

the lush trees that shade my heart.

And hers is pulsating with the blood of my children.

Violation, exploitation, rape.

I can hear the faint rattling of all our pain in the heaving of her chest.

And I feel our Struggle, our Survival, our Resistance

in all her veins.

I dream of a big breasted brown mama holdingme.

My body obeys the Kompa rhythms of her steady time—

she makes me move.

With her I can be soft, and tender, and strong, and speak in tongues.

Whispering tongues that crack the barriers of silence,

Whispering tongues that scream—

REMEMBER ME.

She brings me into her body’s warmth and I search

her familiar folds.

I make love to her with the coded memories on my skin.

We make love with the coded memories on our skin.

She collects the waves of my bloody tears in her mouth as she thanks

God.

She has let me come home to her,

Her in me.