1. |
Sky Drum
02:12
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Sky Drum
There is thunder here
The wind smokes of rain
There is a storm brewing in the mountains.
The tension is released.
Somewhere in the white sky the clouds are getting closer.
These blues don't care no more.
Somewhere in a pilgrim's pain the heart grows a little fuller.
The Path was worth the shoe leather.
Some days the fog hangs too close to the fire
and the sun spends half the morning burning off
the night mists.
Those days are a little easier when a friend offers a hug
and a smile
and says, "It sure is good to have you around."
Let's say a prayer for our pilgrims.
May they find warm shelter from their storms.
Let's sing a song for the Thunder.
May the Sky Drum clear our thoughts once again.
Ho!
Oliver Loveday © 11/6/86/4pmEST
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2. |
Give Me Back My Religion
03:53
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Give me back my religion
Look at these rocks
They can tell you a story
Look at those clouds
There's a song I sing to them
Look at the Deer over there
They know what I'm thinking
They come around to see how I'm doing
These dreams I'm holding
You can call them a painting
These visions I've worked
They're just pieces of wood
There are all kinds of words to explain what this means
But until I can dance
This is the song that I sing
Give me back my religion
It’s the only way that I can be a warrior
Give me back my religion
It's as much a part of me as the air I breathe
Give me back my religion
It's not something you can buy or sell
Give me back my religion
It's the path I walk in this crazy world
I walk to the mountain top and smoke some tobacco
I sing a song and say a prayer
I go down to the river and ask a question
I come back home and sit for a while
I work at my paintings, carve some wood
I weld some metal and drum sometimes
I keep a garden in the summer and have a wood fire
for warmth in the winter
This simple life doesn't cost a lot
I drive an old pick-up truck
I wear blue jeans most of the time
No, I don't have a lot of money, but I got something
money can't buy
I got the hummingbird in the summer
I got the crow in the autumn
I got that ol' hoot owl in the winter
I got a red tailed hawk in the spring
They come and sing to me
I hear their music every day
That is something money can't buy
This is my religion: I use feathers when I pray
This is my religion: I offer smoke with my prayers
This is my religion: I see the Great Mystery in everything
This is my religion: I dance while I still can
Ho!
Oliver Loveday © 7/14/88/2amEDT
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3. |
A Circle Of Wings
06:14
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A Circle of Wings
At Sand Creek the women opened up their blouses to show
The soldiers their breasts, to show they were women.
They were killed anyway.
There was a time we were happy.
The people knew happiness.
The children ran in the meadows amongst the flowers
And butterflies.
The women sang while they worked.
The men prayed before they hunted.
Then the darkness filled the air with fear.
They cut off our wings.
They cut out our throats of music.
They broke the pots of clay that contained our cosmos.
They burnt and trampled our baskets woven with the symbols
Of the spirit world.
They cut out our eyes of vision.
They cut off our open hands that held no weapon of malice.
They cut off our feet that ran and danced in freedom.
They filled the skies with choking smoke.
They cut down the trees.
They filled the streams with poison.
They killed the buffalo.
They broke open the earth to remove the bones of our mother.
They sucked the oil out of her breast.
They killed the salmon and whale we sang to for life.
They cut off our wings and caged us.
At Sand Creek the women in a shallow gorge sent out a young girl
Toward the soldiers with white cloth on a stick.
The soldiers shot the child and then rode over her body as they
Moved closer to kill the women.
We are growing new wings.
We are remembering our songs and prayers.
We are seeking new visions for the people.
We are dancing and running.
Our baskets and pottery contain new dreams.
Now we know when to show our hands empty and when to leave them unemptied.
Our wings are in a circle.
Hold the hands of those beside you.
Join the circle and celebrate freedom.
Raise up your voices and sing the songs
the star nations have given us.
Raise up your wings and embrace vision.
Now is the time to stand strong together.
We have survived.
Tecumseh worked to keep the nations united.
He traveled the country working to avoid the fragmentation
of the People against the wave of fear.
His work will continue until the people stand in a circle again.
He was known to always wear a headband of red and blue cloth.
The buffalo are returning.
The star nations are removing the fear from the air.
Our wings have new feathers.
Ay-eee-yah! A circle is forming.
Ho!
Oliver Loveday © 12/11/92/3pmEST
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4. |
Down At The Compound
08:23
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Down at the Compound
The fire is down to embers
The sun is already behind the ridge
The hills are quiet with winter
Hunters in their four-wheel drive trucks and high-powered rifles
have all killed for sport and gone home.
Leaving behind a trail of beer cans,
wounded deer who went to die a quarter mile from where they
were hit,
the carcasses of deer thrown by the side of the road,
(head missing, work for the taxidermist).
Down at the compound
the soldiers give the Cherokee
flour and lard to live on
Another hunting season has come and gone.
Now it is time for Holly and Spice.
Eggnog and drunk driving fatalities.
These hills slumber in winter with memories of the sporting war.
Come spring the honeysuckle will cover the beer cans.
Doe will suckle new fawns.
Down at the compound
the soldiers give the young women
whiskey if they will dance naked for them
whiskey so they will fall down drunk
so the soldiers can rape them
Mountain mint is dried for tea
Colt's foot is put up for cold remedies
"Rat's vein" for kidney problems
Sassafras root for arthritis
The Medicine Plants the Earth provides for us
while in Washington, D.C. Congress works on bills to make
it illegal to sell these plants.
Down at the compound
The only thing you can make
with flour and lard is fry bread
After a few days everyone gets the runs.
The Pow-Wow came to town.
Everyone went to see the Indians dance
and eat fry bread.
Down at the compound
there was no shelter
and just a pit in the corner
The soldiers laugh at us when we have to go.
You say to me, "If you are an Indian
"Where is your war bonnet and peace pipe?
"If you are an Indian lets see you dance
like they did in front of our hotel in Santa Fe."
Down at the compound
the women all make a circle
and hold out their skirts
so the soldiers can't see the women needing to go
I was born in Knoxville, Tennessee
in a hospital on the banks of the Tennessee River
and I grew up on a small farm.
My father provided for his family by working in a factory.
I have lived all my life in these mountains.
I know their ways.
Down at the compound
the women cut the hair of those that dance
and drink with the soldiers
to try and make them less attractive
To some I am a White Indian
Because I am Cherokee
Because I don't live on a Reservation
Because I refuse to apply for a B.I.A. card
Down at the compound
the babies and the elderly die first
they are buried in one corner of the compound
by men too weak to dig very deep
Disillusioned by the city life
Many descendants of European immigrants are seeking out the
Native Ways.
Buying drums and sacred pipes.
Learning songs from cassette tapes.
Learning medicine from books written by anthropologist
written by lawyers with no apologies.
Down at the compound
the women are allowed out
to go to the creek for water.
The soldiers rape some of them
while they are away from the men.
I am a prisoner of war in my own homeland
These mountains are held prisoner also
Barbed wire and legal deeded papers
Plants that grow on the other side of the fence
can't be gathered to help the people
Deer that come when I am hungry
can't be shot out of season
Down at the compound
It is winter and supplies of flour and lard are low
Time to walk the survivors to Oklahoma.
Creator put me here for a reason
gave me a vision and a song
I live in a world that respects someone by the amount of money
that they earn
Creator gave me a song
I may not be much in this world
but I will go into the next one singing.
Down at the compound
Spirits wait for their people to come home.
Ho!
Oliver Loveday © 12/8/93/4pmEST
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5. |
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Song of the Turquoise Woman
Across this space she sits quiet naked
in a blue air with forgotten skin
Orange and yellow flare in the Electra.
These blue shades that color the sea.
windows and twos, threes.
the rocks hold back the pounding sea
Ocean not as peaceful as its naming days
and I
Lost from these ancient hills
stand in the wind and frozen sun
stare against the tears of eyeballs
ripped by the closing wind.
I sing against the rush of waves
and lost calls of sea gulls clashing around me.
From some childhood vision I sang out these words.
Evening prayers.
and finished I turn to leave some city park
that closes at sun down.
The rush of all those memories
of all those dreams of all those lessons
ten thousand realities crash upon
the beach of my mental silence
my breath thick and drawn against
the rush of too much conscience.
O Turquoise Woman
The Sun enters your home to sleep for the night.
Hold the Sun, most mighty of stars,
in your secret chamber of rest
and release the Light Warrior
in the morrow full and strong
to continue to chase the darkness
Into the Night.
Ho!
Oliver Loveday © 5/7/88/12:30amEDT
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6. |
Road Dust Memory
09:09
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ROAD DUST MEMORY
Three fires in this dream and fire begets fire
Riding in the soupy summer night.
Cool air blowing freedom into the open window.
Mind merges with machine and freedom sings up from wheels
on the road.
Teenaged and life beckons.
Radio provides the sound track. An anthem.
Some war, somewhere else, imposes itself on the drifting signal
at the top of the hour as real as the draft blasting through
the car window, an anxiety forgotten as quickly as it is felt.
Another song, another smoke, an empty tank and the night grows
old and tired.
Tomorrow, dreams will mean nothing in the face of summer jobs and
school boy desire.
Suddenly, in Santa Fe, it all makes sense.
Twenty years later, down by the Santa Fe River that only runs
when the flood locks upstream spill the overflow.
Thunder storms provide an excess of water and memory.
The road isn't freedom, it is the path from one conflict to
another.
Going is the break that makes you.
Getting there is the entire trip.
Being there is some silence a road never gives.
These four walls and a lover, somewhere else, some other time,
and we all need love.
Political songs about social change never make it on the radio
anymore.
Honey, that was just a phase we were all going through.
Spiritual change is not very commercial.
Best left to the ones in charge of St Peter, Paul and the Virgin Mary.
We can't change the world so we may as well join it, buy a BMW or an Astro Van.
Drink imports and wear a crystal.
Forget the road and fly the threatened and threatening.
Political change jingles to the tune of MegaBucks, MegaDeath, and
a MegaWatt undercurrent hum.
The ones in charge charge and if you can't pay then buy on time
which is running out faster than you think,
faster than you can dream.
The road calls.
Another town.
Another coke machine at a gas station that closes at sundown.
Fires Coil around the brain and burn all night.
fires flicker like heat lightning
fires that once burned along this river
fires that remember this ancient song
fires that remember ancient drums
fires that danced through bitter tears
The sun rises once more to send winds to scatter the ashes.
Anger wells up like fires erupting from Earth.
Old anger of wounds inflicted on young bodies that become
invisible scars that cut deeper into the souls of the adults.
Anger of unrequited love.
Anger of love turned sour and worse.
Legal maneuvers and false accusations that take the children away
and take the youth out of the children.
Anger that wakes us up in the morning and sings us to sleep each
night until we awaken one day to a body of anger.
Too cold and empty to feel anymore.
and still the fires burn
and the dancers honor the drum
and history is passed on to those who still dream
Each fire has its own song, its own breath.
The fire keeper looks into it to find its current meaning.
Fire leaves its mark as accurate as lightning.
and seven sisters sing in the night
The morning star completes the chorus.
The last fire consumes its last piece of fuel.
The turtle moves, as ancient as ice
as ancient as fire.
The chosen ones sing one last song and memory is satisfied.
We know the ones who keep the spark for the next fire.
We know the ones willing to die so the chosen ones may live.
We know the ones killing those who serve the people.
We know where we sit in this circle.
The fire gives life to all in this circle.
It sings a soft sweet song.
It is telling me its song.
Now I have written it down.
Now the fire has told you who you are.
Fires burn like distant thunder.
HO!
Oliver Loveday © 8/01/91/2pm EST Indianapolis, IN
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7. |
She Walks In Beauty
03:54
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She walks in thunder amongst the cloaks of clouds
Raindrops reveal the seeds she brings
She smiles across the sky in radiant colors
She sends messengers rolling through the valleys
The clouds reflect the light of her music
She dances with the wind
The land is hard to touch
People are pitted one against the other
No one loves for the sake of honoring the heart
It is hard to dream in this land
New skyscrapers are ruins before they are built
The children's bodies are a wasteland of drugs and violence
Athlete's bodies are blown up with steroids
The music is an abrasive mantra of destruction
Video reality is an electronic bombardment against the screen
Against the senses
She smiles in radiant colors
She walks across the land in harmony with the elements
Flowers rise up to greet her
Bees come out to eat her nectar
Her music sings the children to sleep into dreams of living
The guns are aimed at the children
Guns bought with tax money paid to keep the land free
Guns filled with electronic bullets to imprison the mind
Guns filled with electronic sounds of fragmented addictions
Guns filled with chemicals that fill the spirit with madness
The guns come in many forms to destroy the children
The guns are aimed at us
We make the guns
She walks with the thunder
It drowns out the sound of guns
She lifts up the flowers to drink of the rain
Lightning crackles to block out the electronic blast
Of radio signal
She engulfs the wounded spirit of the children and leads them
To the land of fertile dreams
She kisses their tears with gentle rain
The wasteland ponders the thunder
Flowers grow in the dust made fertile with rain
The wind plays a sweet song against the edge of naked steel
The children sing while playing in the thistles
The guns, needles, and televisions wilt into the rust of night
Thunder
The lightning flashes red beyond the buildings of madness
She walks in beauty.
HO!
Oliver Loveday © July 17, 1992, 2:50pm EDT
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8. |
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Spider Woman's Creation Process
She casts her web across the abyss
creating the atoms from energy
Blocking together the molecules
spinning them into the web
information into the web
across the network
matter channels the wisdom of ages
Spider Woman watches inside her hideout
sensitive to every motion, every surge.
She is telling me her story.
a single strand blows freely in the wind.
eighty feet long
sunlight glints off its shiny surface.
we are riding the cosmic winds into eternity.
Hand me my spider mask.
HO!
Oliver Loveday 2/5/89/8pmEST
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9. |
Star Lightning
02:01
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Star Lightning
Across these stars
into the aeons of darkness
dancing in the silence
opening to the memories
waking to the solar vision
the star song sings against the stones
singes and stews the silica
alumna breath arises in waves
magna and molten memories
the frozen agate in sulfuric jazz
Earth maps in the topography
sheet music in the layers of sand
The river runs here for a reason
but I can't remember why
the planets hang in the evening sky
but don't point too quick
the Eagle wants to look in silence
wind against the skin
star milk against the bones
Radio waves blast the soul through
ten thousand lives and next Tuesday, too.
we use tea cups for telescopes
poetry for star maps, me and my pen.
shooting stars eclipses the dying embers
Lightning never strikes the same nova twice.
Ho!
Oliver Loveday © 4/10/88/1amEDT
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10. |
These Angel Skies #3
02:43
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These Angel Skies #3
These angel skies that wrap around me
Dark rider amongst the turbulence
Looking down on the twinkling lights of your sleepy prairie
town, and I don't understand why you live that way.
::that dream of riding the thunder clouds from 15 years ago
coming back in this wave of memories and
I want to live live live
These dreams that I travel on
across the lengths of all my realities
I sit around the fire and tell you
dreams words cannot contain
these words are thrown down along your path
like hamburger wrappers from a fast food place
I walk along the street strewn with litter
Alienated by dreams and dignity from those I love
Here, I have done a collage of found objects
no, these are not my dreams, they are yours
all that garbage along the Lost Highway isn't just mine
I'm not the only one dreaming of Peace.
Now I walk away
now you walk behind me
HO!
Oliver Loveday © 6/12/88/3pmEDT
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11. |
The Freedom Fires
02:46
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The Freedom Fires
We were the younger generation that revolted
Hungry in the winds of war and racism
Standing on the naked mountain devoid of trees
Thirsty in the waters down stream from open pit mining wounds
Now our children are the younger generation
they study law
they study accounting
they study environmental science
they go to Grateful Dead concerts
they compose rap songs for social consciousnesses
they embrace the freedom of choice for abortion
and sexual orientation
they learn the workings of a beast called HIV/AIDS
The revolting wheels turn
Our candles have turned into melted wax
We are waiting for someone to hold a candle to their flame
These freedom fires that burn deep into our souls
Now a young man dies for freedom in Southern Mexico
Now a young woman dies for freedom in Los Angeles
What does it matter that we protested the killings at Kent State
What does it matter that we protested the killings in Jackson
What does it matter that we protested
the killings at Wounded Knee
What does it matter that we protested the killings
in Tinamin Square
Without a new generation to keep these Freedom Fires burning,
it won't.
We pass on this flame
It is fueled by only one weapon
one doesn't need guns
one doesn't need bombs
one doesn't need a tear-gas mask
one only needs to speak the truth
Ho!
Oliver Loveday © 5/18/95/1:39pmEDT
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12. |
The Path To Beauty
01:11
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The Path to Beauty
In silence we looked at the clear night sky
seeking a view we could grasp
In silence we looked into each other's eyes
seeking a view we could grasp
This unbearable lightness, descending
we held tightly to that which we could touch
This unbearable burden, rising within
we released the walls from around our hearts
This nefarious sense of knowing
love and truth every flowing
This transit existence of life
how it quickens within
Oliver Loveday © 12/15/99/1 am EST
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13. |
Bliss Dance
03:23
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Bliss Dance
There we were chanting
Windows of paradox
Outside numbers between lessons
Shoes politely between music and fiber
Muscle tone green
We ate mangoes and sang
O, see this in waves
Mother lode of love
Standing in the light
Music in this minute night
Blessings to the wings
O, soundless spirit of time
Yes
We inch into our personal lives
Shove the Sunday time zone
Into careful mountain space
Get up and walk
Color the idea in groups of three
Seven from eleven
And dancing
Teachers’ music in the clouds
We stand on landscapes and dance
Wonder in silence
White Bird visions
Full Moon Mud cries
We stand between time and Holy Bliss
Stand up and be saved
Mountains across the eons
Simple answer, the idea
Smile
Waves raise us up to further our wings
Colors, centers, chakra
We know
7 centers
144,000 outlets
Dancing in the pale moonlight
And we know
Hey, aye
Children dancing in the wind
Blowing free and crazy
Hair flowing in the wind
Cells of exploding light fill the sky
We chant
O, Spirit. This energy
Rising from my spine
I bite deep
Hold my memories
Chakra karma digs
We are three seven
144,000 and rising
O Spirit, we bless you
O Spirit, we praise you
And chanting
Yes, yes, yes, yes
We are old
Atlantis old
Carnal age
Forgetting to dance
But dance, brother
We are free
Frenzy
A-ho!
Oliver Loveday © 1/12/81/12:30am EST
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14. |
Homage To Artaud
02:21
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Homage to Artaud
I would not mess with your horizon.
I would not eat your only landscape.
The birds are listing in a vision.
The whales are moving through a gulf.
Dogs are penned up in my memory.
Flames are marring my frantic signal.
I would not crack beneath your awe.
I would not explode beneath your awning.
Oliver Loveday © 11/04/81
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15. |
The Midnight Chant
04:49
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The midnight chant
This is the midnight chant, the midnight chant
Dancing in the Full Moon Heat
In the midnight heat
We are chanting in the midnight light
Chanting in the ethereal dream
In the midnight, in the midnight
We shall live again
In the midnight
This is the Saturday Night Hope
Longing for some silence
Longing for that freedom
Running in the crazy light
Chanting at some opening
We are living in some dream
Running with a vision
Searching through a paradox
In the midnight
The midnight fire
The heat of hope
This is the running on the Earth
In the skin, in the light
Running with a vision
Running with the animals
Flying with the night birds
Dreaming of some freedom
Chanting in the Earth Music
And flying with a nighthawk
This is a dream of the past
Chanting toward the future
Lying in the sand
Running through the portal
With the midnight
Because the night
Because the night
The night holds us in her freedom
Chanting in the wind
Blowing out our madness
Stretching out our vision
Living in our wings
Going for the future
In the midnight, in a quiet light
This is the white light
Our vision of some freedom
Chanting with all the animals
Running on the Earth
Circling the midnight
Circling the freedom of the night
We chant
A-ho!
Oliver Loveday © 07/09/81/12:30pm EDT
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16. |
||||
The Unbearable Lightness of Vision
She was standing in the rain
Crying and singing songs against this pain
She was dancing in this terrible wind
Like a butterfly that just took the form of a woman
With thunder in her voice and lightning in her eyes
She was giving this world all her love.
(She said, "All your poems are sad."
She never wrote a poem.
She never tried to survive as an artist.
Against the storms the vision comes in and lends
beauty to this life.
Sadness is part of all this.
Some of us are privileged in life and some by death.
The moment arrives when the dancer lays down her body
in the storm and makes way for the next dancer.
Beauty isn't just in the work but in the working.)
Inside this pebble of rain I see her dancing on the mountain.
She stands as an anthem of beauty and sorrow.
Her hair is a portrait of the wind.
Her spirit is a song that has been let out of its cultural
prison.
She stands inside this wind and dreams a world beyond all the
sadness left behind her.
The rain embraces her body and leaves her pure before the sky.
Milk is the fruit of birth.
Beauty is the fruit of seeing beyond all this suffering.
Her skies are filled with clouds, sunshine, moon glow,
star milk, and wings.
Ho!
Oliver Loveday © 4/12/93/1pmEST
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17. |
||||
This Invisible Air That We Carry
Sometimes there are too many feelings to feel all at once
Put the hard ones aside for now and let the past fade
Like a photograph we won't remember soon enough
Keep functional and keep smiling like we're okay
We were never okay but that's better left unsaid
It's best to use language that the audience understands
It would help if there was an audience to talk to
Erasure happens when honesty humanizes reality
Keeping up the goody goody two shoes appearance
Is more important than the truth for some
I just work here
I have feelings like everyone else
This might be a bad time to mention that
The truth stands when the world falls
But if you don't have a leg to stand on
Maggie and I opened up one of those boxes last night
Going through the quilts that had been handed down
This one box had some other items handed down
Looks like it's finally safe to go through a few things
A few pings of pain but mostly it doesn't hurt anymore
I'm not invited to the family reunion
It's not like I ever did anything other than the next right thing
But that's not good enough in a world of “pass for white”
As a child I wasn't allowed to let my hair grow out
I didn't understand why that was at the time
Now I understand that it would signal that we weren't white
Excuse me for being real in a reality where I'll never be good enough
My great-grandfather was an enrolled member of the Western Band
So much for hiding our true identity
Better to erase me from the family than admit that I was right
I'll be okay
At least I've been honest about who I am
That takes courage in a pretend reality
Some days it still hurts like hell
I've made peace with the fact that I've got feelings
Love
Oliver Loveday © September 4, 2023, 12:17 pm EDT
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