Indian girls can be
forgotten so well they forget themselves.
Sometimes grief is a
nothing feeling.
In white culture,
forgiveness is synonymous with letting go.
In my culture, I believe we carry pain until we can reconcile with it
through ceremony. Pain is not framed
like a problem with a solution.
I wasn't made to be
ornamental, but it's what I wanted. I
inherited black eyes and a grand, regal grief that your white women won't own
or carry.
Nobody wants to know
why Indian women leave or where they go. Our bodies walk across the highway
from the dances of our youth into missing narratives without strobe lights or
sweet drinks in our small purses, or the talk of leaving. The truth of our leaving or coming into the
world is never told.
Thunder is
contrary. Thunder can intuit, and her
action is the music caused by lightning.
She comes because we ask, and that's why falling apart is holy.
