Someone Took my Bones

I wrote and memorized a poem for one of my classes. The poem is supposed to, well,…. you read it and let me know what message it holds.

Someone took my bones

Left another’s beneath my skin

I don’t know whose framework I’m resting on

The movements are foreign

 

The spine is flawed and faulty

Constructed on colonialist ideologies

This causes it to curve

I find myself bowed over instinctually

Eyes facing feet, facing earth

 

They get this constant creak

When I correct the character of its curvature

And stand proudly

 

Whose bones have you given me?

 

They must be allergic to my genetic makeup

Form a reaction to the pigment of my skin,

Because I never felt comfortable in

these bones I’ve been living in

 

These old knotted bones got me dancing with devils

And forgetting my identity

They aren’t built to scale obstacles

Weak knees have me kneeling

At the feet of patriarchy

 

These bones hold songs

In foreign tongues

They don’t know where they’re going

Because they know not from where they come

I’m trying to remember ritual movements

But these bones have them undone

 

These brittle bones have me breaking at the slightest

Beat          beat         beat

And no matter how hard I try

I can’t beat them out of me

 

I could never give enough to appease these bones

I had given sacrifices on my back

But still they creaked and groaned

 

I made war with the colour that covers me

Fighting tooth and nail but I have won

No sovereignty

 

The gaps in between joints scream

Of carefully placed inferiority

An inheritance from forefathers

Not of my blood

They tell me tales not of love

 

I am too unsanctified to be sacred

 

Too blemished to be beautiful naked

 

Too brown to be of any value

 

Too primitive to be respected

 

Too common to be protected

 

Too heathen to be holy

 

 

I’m tired of these tired ol’ bones

These feet have walked 500 years of colonization

These fractured hips gave birth to your civilization

But this heart,

This heart can still navigate stars and find its way home.

I am taking back my bones

 

Blessed with a ribcage wide enough to hold my history

A spine strong enough to dance and live traditionally

And legs capable to carry me through my journey

Full of songs sung by ancients that came before me

You will never find me kneeling

Never see me flying the flags of the defeated

Because I evicted the bones that you created

 

I’m coming home and

I’ve buried those white mans bones