The Ramblings of a Non-Status Mi'kmaw Woman

As a Child, Girl, and Woman

As a child

        Injected with fairytales and happily ever afters

You used to imagine meeting a boy in the woods

Following the light that set the green leaves into an iridescent daze

        A boy who followed the whispers of his ancestors

        Trying to find his way just like you and guiding you along too

You needed someone to guide you through all the muddledness of the past and present

        A colonialist past overflowing with hate and disgust

        A brighter present sowing the seeds of change and hope

Telling yourself you were too scared to take the first step on your own

As a girl

You searched for him in all types of places

Searching through allies that took you to alcoholic parties and to electric lit backstreets

        Or to the bustling classrooms and sun lit campus streets

Walking with men

        Wape'k         Maqtewe'k         Watapsit         Mekwe'k

               White                   Black                 Yellow                 Red

Basking in the fantasy that each man gave you

Hoping to dear god that they would silence your gut, mind and heart

Engraving their ambitions and desires into you in hopes that they would become your own

Donning on their masks and hiding from your own face

As a woman

You became comfortable being their seductive siren

                                                                 their bewitching witch

Forgetting to let down the mask and let them see in

Silencing yourself a hundred times more than they ever could

        You dreamed of that boy when you were a girl

        Hoping as a woman that you'd one day find him as a man

                Him bestowing onto you the very thing you were searching for the most

                Being enough in your own skin and  blood

Now as the muddledness clears and the dream fades

        Being dashed with each season that passes

You know now no boy or man exists that can give you that feeling

The feeling you felt so long ago

        That feeling you wrapped around yourself like an old quilted blanket

                                  Sewn with loving hands

        The warmth starting at your gut when you knew all was well

                                  And you had the wisdom of the Elders to guide you

        The heart bursting with the type of love

                                 Which only comes from feeling safely vulnerable in a room full of people

        The racing thoughts going still

                                 From the smell of sage and sweetgrass

The feeling of being enough rushing over you like a tidal wave