amidst the smoke, drums and fire- heal, I plead.

“How do you feel?”

A simple question, that when asked by white mental health workers, can feel like a thousand searing blades. How do I explain, that everyday, I see coloniality. That my behaviour and the psycho-social behaviours of my friends, my family, bear stark similarities to the learned tools of oppression used by colonists and slavers to subjugate people of colour. How does one explain how the daily racist micro and macro- aggressions, make me hate to open newspapers, read for class, watch television, do the simplest things without seeing black bodies discarded. Homophobia normalised. Misogynoir normalised. How can I explain that everyday I feel trapped in their world, but when I escape try to escape to mine, I find it too is overwhelmed with coloniality.

so sometimes I sit in the dark of my room and try to summon, whatever remains of my embodied self. of I and I. before they destroyed us a thousand times. I sit there amidst candles, amidst drums, amidst sage and incense. Sometimes I find release and leave here. But it is temporary, and even having left here, I am constantly cognisant of this world. but nonetheless I sit and beg:

Heal.

Heal, I implore my soul.

 

heal the trauma of coloniality,

heal the centuries of bondage,

heal the genocides of I and I,

heal the earth that has died in service to greed,

heal the scattered parts of my people,

heal this trauma that haunts my soul.

 

I implore you, heal.

Return me to myself!

 

‘But how?’ I am asked as my reverie breaks:

‘how can you heal, when you are still a colonised slave in

their world?

 

Featured Image credit: Ally @hellokalequeen on Instagram

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