Pride.
I am not a child of pride.
Nothing to see.
I am not a child of pride.
Nothing to bleed.
I am not a child of pride.
Nothing to know.
I am not a child of pride.
Nothing to grow.
I place a seed in my hand,
Cocooning my head in the sand.
The wind pushes me away.
I fall into the tides.
Chasing the seed in the chaos of its wake.
I am not a child of pride.
No motion to follow.
No mountain to climb.
No hill to conquer.
Time.
My mother laid me down-
Taking my hand and tucking me tight.
Uttering words that haunt me every night.
Do not worry child-
There are no monsters under your bed
No monsters that will chew your bones.
Only monsters that won’t accept no.
I am not a child of pride.
I am not a child,
You see.
I am a message, conceived.
I am a tradition, untold.
I am culture, with no home
Bloody hands,
sink into the ocean.
Shedding into hydrotropic weavings,
Sieving.
Dreaming.
For the seed.
That held the togetherness
Of the land,
I wish to breathe.
Photography by Darius Iromlou