Ayita

I like my skin best when it's dark.
I feel so in touch with the best parts of my DNA.
The parts that make up the savage in me,
the stubborn parts of me,
passed on by years of begrudged compliance.
I don't like the white skin of mine,
it looks too weak, too normal, too sheltered.
I am none of those things,
I am a beautiful woman,
but I have struggled.
I like people to know that I am an indian healer.
I like to mystify people with facts about the earths medicine.
I like to lay upon legs, and heal the crippled,
for I, myself have been crippled.
And know what it means to live trapped within yourself.
I tell stories,
about moments I've lived.
I write poetry about the insides of my brain,
I am an honest woman,
which comes from the indian in me,
certainly not the white.
When you pick your breads,
You have been told that the white bread holds no nutritional value.
You, instead reach for the multigrain, or the wheat.
Why embrace the parts of you, that are no good for you?
In the womb,
My grandmother, with her long fingers,
placed her hand upon my mothers belly.
She was an indian healer, and she needed to give me a name.
She called me "Eyita" which means "first to dance."
How did she know that I would spend my life dancing?
Above all things, how did she know, I would be the first to break the ice?
That's my personality in a nutshell,
never afraid to be the first to dance.
And even though I admire my birth name,
being "Olivia" or a "peace maker" seems so unrealistic at times.
Some days I spend living as Olivia,
I cook, I clean, I speak softly, I make peace.
But the days I spend as Eyita, I feel most alive.
The nights I am onstage, glowing.
That isn't Olivia, that is Eyita.
The nights I feel too much, burdened by the evil in this town,
That is Olivia.
And though I seem strong as Olivia,
I am a lesser version of who I would truly, and always love to be.
I am an indian woman.
I am not white.
I am Eyita.