Rebel Bridge Building

I was born a bridge

A teeny tiny sickly little bridge

a plank really

didn’t really seem like I would make it from one place to another

Looked more like a brief line in the sand

Told I could be ANYTHING much more than my scaffolding

could challenge structures. bridge ideas. up hold a standard

Sturdy resilient women were counting on me.

It’s just what we do. What is necessary. What we should.

But you always worried about me

I didn’t cry didn’t complain so quiet you could almost forget about me

fell asleep after one chi chi

Took me so long just to speak my first word.

I was a baby who traveled so neatly under your huipil several weeks after I was born

with you, speaking on behalf of women from this continent

words careful studied not too proud but necessarily round

from the intellect. Research from the ground

equally competent women traveling internationally conferring to build strategy and solidarity

serious business representing a hundred different countries

soften when they see this tiny milk drunk baby

so calm among the urgent business of organization,

intellect and influencing the powers that be to save humans from these policies

for

babies

like

me

I am passed around

so peaceful

comfortable in each woman’s arms

women smelling of earth and dignity.

but along the way I would pick up all these anxieties that I was not enough

I would escape into the silences in between

It would take a long time before I learned I could use my bridge building skills to just connect all the parts of me

Freeing up so much time worrying that I was meant to fall.

Would you know about the weight I would carry when I learned I was joining territories?

My fight with responsibility, duty and authority

That my body’s desires, my intuitive impulses would betray me,

My serious need to laugh at rules, rub up against destiny and play close to the edge

before I would

give in, forgive, let go, have faith,

Let someone in… just a little bit.

Love much more than family identity and community.

Let

you…

Let Me…

Love

me.