let me tell you about HOME

06/29/13

home is that place on her tongue
she doesn’t even know it’s there
she doesn’t know i call it home

home is that place below my last rib
where Christianity got it wrong
& said i sprang
i birthed myself
home

home is dinétah
red & brown like me
soft & rough like me
can kill you if you lose your way
i didn’t tell you that?
it’s true
don’t quote me on that
quote her
quote the desert

home is when i soften & my leobabe smiles
it’s when i find myself tickling their child body with my feet
they know how to coax me out of my
everyday struggle & hustle to keep us alive & fed
it’s in their hand that fits in mine
that’s home, too

home is what it felt the first time i heard
“it’s because you’re queer & brown 
that you can see everything you do
it’s because you’re queer & brown 
that you can carry everything the way you do
you know what you know because you’re queer & brown”

home felt like bursting
like turning every lie inside out 
& tasted like all the salt of all the tears i never knew how to cry