Indian Blood

I’m just a white girl with dirty blonde hair and brown eyes, 
An anger management problem, and a mind full of lies. 
I try elaborate ways to hide secret pain, 
And anything that might soak up or drain 
The Indian Blood coursing through my veins.

Cedar branches are just parts of a tree. 
Crows are like any other bird: flying free. 
Dancing is nothing but movements of the feet, 
The sound of the drum is just a bland beat, 
So where is the middle line we can meet?

“160 years or so couldn’t have an effect.” 
“Homes will be safe and loving, abundant with culture, not a place for neglect.” 
‘Generational trauma’ just sounds like an excuse, 
Especially when the berating becomes violent and profuse; 
It feels like nothing but justified abuse

Not just to me, but to my father before 
And his mother, who the government paid and then slammed the door. 
They teach in schools what they think we need to know— 
How, as a society, we need to move forward and grow. 
But they didn’t go.

But neither did I, and we all know residential schools were wrong;
Without them, we could’ve still had our song: 
What I desperately want from time to time
When I don’t hate what’s genetically mine; 
When I see that song as gold, not grime.

It’s hard to explain exactly how I feel 
When others make the world seem joyous when they heal. 
But what if I see the world just the same? 
Without the colour of my culture; without my given name; 
Without the sense of longing and the uncovered blame; 
With the ignorance: prominent, blissful, and aflame. 
Perhaps I’m too shattered to come together again, 
Yet my Indian Blood is still in my veins.