Blood Has Been Shed

I’m only just beginning to learn upon whose backs
my life has been built;
whose blood has been shed for mine to live;
who has been displaced for me to stand where I stand.
Every time I learn something new,
my knees want to buckle in disgust,
in shame, guilt and shock for the nameless horrors
forgotten
that have become the raw silk from which we have sewn
our flags and our sashes.
Even so,
I read on
I watch on
I listen on
I pray on,
determined like a madwoman
drinking glass after glass of hope
slurring speech and singing obnoxiously loud
in praise of life,
for even as we walk streets paved with bones of the deceased,
our hands carry seeds for another time,
and even if it takes fifteen generations for them to flower and fruit
I want my bones to pave those roads
our great great great great grandchildren can walk
barefoot, hand in hand, singing songs that tell
of the names and stories of the plants, people,
and animals they belong to,
knowing too the blood that has been shed for them to arrive
in a land worth descending from, one beyond my imagination…
…I want this so badly.
I barely know where to begin,
and here,
I start.

~Dominique Youkhehpaz
Self-Marriage Ceremonies