Hummingbird, let me sing

Hummingbird, do you know when a body becomes a battlefield? The day it is born. The day it is born. Sit close and I’ll tell you a story. A story before our treehouse crushes from all my grief, our gr ief.

I am a body my mother doesn’t recognize. You are a river that knows too much yet murmurs nothing. You are a river, I am only a body. Let us float. Or do we sink? Let the light decide that. After all you are born with light glistening on your face, you must let it decide.

Look at the river, it flows, it sways like a madman. Which mother to decide if the river can flow that way or this way? But the waters…they’re not from around here. They’re not from around Here. But they’re alluring. Their singing is not like ours, hummingbird. They sing sharp and cutting, like a serpent’s tongue, like a rose’s thorn, no, no, like a beehive. The masses gathered around the river and swayed to its rhythm. Are we madmen and women now? Or are we admirers? Let the light decide that.

I am a body bent over the river’s reflection. I am tidy. I am untidy. Where am I? I can stare and stare at my body gazing back at me, but listen close hummingbird, and you will hear it laugh. The river laughs? Yes, it does! When you come close and whisper, it laughs like a hyena.

Why does it laugh, you ask? Because we don’t belong. We are outcasts. Misfit toys. Some bodies come close, too close to the river and start singing their folk songs. Their ancestral rhythm and blood, they let it pour over the river. But your song disappears. Your song sounds childish. Your song echoes strangely here. The light shines harshly upon your tongue, and it folds. It hesitates. It gulps down saliva and forgets to sing. It forgets its rhythm.

I am a body touching the river gently. Lucidly. I caress its gentle face and kiss its silent mouth. It must have so many stories, hummingbird. The river doesn’t speak a word. But I know it can see, I know it sees through us all, our fluctuating accents, our mother tongue, our mothers, my Mother, your Mother, aren’t we all under the same night sky? The light is harsh and exciting. Like the wild geese. But we do not know about the river. It is mysterious and kind. It lets our tired hands scoop water, which we drink hungrily down our scarred throats. But everytime we drink from it, our bodies make sounds. They fluctuate. They crumble like a throne in front of a king. It submits.

I am a body drowning in the river. I’ve let it consume me. I have decided, let it carry me miles across. I want to see all of it, I’m allured, carry me. The light spits across my face and roars, or does it laugh? How do you differentiate mockery from respect? Tragedy from comedy? Apathy from Empathy? Who is the hyena? Who is the wild geese? Hummingbird, sit close, our treehouse is near its end, but this story, like any other one has an ending.

I am a body bleeding in the river, my veins cut across its lines, my roots, where are my roots? Where is my song? Where is my tongue? The light always showed the way but now it is silent. The river too is silent. I am a body my mother doesn’t recognize but I am a body. I am a soul. I am a woman. I drag my bloody body

across the land and sing for my ancestors. I sing over their graves and tell the river, you cannot fight your battles on my body anymore.

You

cannot

fight

Your battles

On my body

Anymore.

I am a body standing on the river and

I drink It

All. I drink like a hungry woman. I am mad. I am ferocious. But I am a woman. And I will not tremble. I will not run. I stand upon the river and let the light call me cruel and harsh. But I am the wild geese. I am the hyena. I am my mother’s aching feet. I stamp upon it as the chenda beats to my rhythm. I will roar, I will climb and touch the light. Let it crush under the weight of my hands like a fetus. How hard is it to kill the spotlight? All you need is your mother’s song trembling in your heart. All you need is your mother’s aching tongue singing for you on her deathbed.

All I am is a body my mother doesn’t recognize. The river sank. I am still sinking, hummingbird. Let this treehouse fall like the river. Look in my eyes, and tell me, I am still my mother’s daughter. Where will we run when our mother’s grief tramples us all? Your grief. My grief. Our gr ief. Aren’t we all under the same night sky?

Hummingbird, let me sing from my eyes tonight.

Your eyes, my eyes, our ey es.