Sandpaper between two cultures which tear one another apart I'm not a means by which you can reach spiritual understanding or even learn to do beadwork I'm only willing to tell you how to make fry bread.

1 cup flour, spoon of salt, spoon of baking powder. Stir Add milk or water or beer until it holds together. Slap each piece into rounds. Let rest. Fry in hot grease until golden.

This is Indian food only if you know that Indian is a government word which has nothing to do with our names for ourselves I won't chant for you, I admit no spirituality to you, I will not sweat with you or ease your guilt with fine turtle tales, I will not wear dancing clothes to read poetry or explain hardly anything at all.

I don't think your attempts to understand us are going to work so, I'd rather you left us in whatever peace we can still scramble up after all you continue to do, If you send me one more damn flyer about how to heal myself for $300 with special feminist counseling, I'll probably set fire to something.

If you tell me one more time that I'm wise I'll throw up on you. Look at me see my confusion, loneliness fear worrying about all our struggles to keep what little is left for us. Look at my heart not your fantasies.

Please don't ever again tell me about your Cherokee great-great grandmother. Don't assume I know every other Native Activist in the world personally. That I even know names of all the tribes or can pronounce names I've never heard or that I'm expert at the peyote stitch.

If you ever again tell me how strong I am I'll lay down on the ground & moan so you'll see at last my human weakness like your own. I'm not strong I'm scraped. I'm blessed with life while so many I've known are dead. I have work to do dishes to wash a house to clean, There is no magic. See my simple cracked hands which have washed the same things you wash. See my eyes dark with fear in a house by myself late at night. See that to pity me or to adore me are the same. 1 cup flour, spoon of salt, spoon of baking powder, liquid to hold. Remember this is only my recipe. There are many others.

Let me rest here at least.

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