Amskapi

I can’t tell you what it really is. I can only tell you what it feels like. -Eminem

 

I know more Lakota than I do my own language. Duwale. I know I’m not spelling that right.

Oki, saniitapi?

How many i’s are in saniitapi anyway? Have I got them in the right order? Have I got myself in the right order?

I am tired of my scrabble board self. Colonization bingo.

Nisto matsokapi. Poohsapoot.

I refuse to put my own language in italics. Fuck you if you can’t read it. This isn’t about you.

See, I can give you directives in my grandfather’s forbidden tongue but I can’t tell you much about how I feel. I can’t shrug you off. I can’t express gratitude in any way that you might understand.

For that, I have to go to an old enemy, to bands of misnomers.

I have to sit inside of their suffocation, holding bundles of sage to my face, to see my own reflection shimmering to life, bounced off hot rock.

Mitakuye oyasin?

No.

Minipoka.