written May 2024
i twisted my ankle.
4 weeks later, i can still feel the pain.
will it ever heal?
will i ever not feel
that sense of stabbing
when i set my foot on the ground?
or has Pine Ridge altered my very anatomy?
the last time i twisted my ankle like this
was fall of '22.
i stepped on the sidewalk
coming home from the bus stop
at just the wrong angle.
it was the thing that finally prompted me
to start to use a mobility aid.
my ankle still gives me problems.
my heel has never fully healed.
i still feel some of that pain
when i walk around.
will this be the same?
this land was far more friendly
than the Wauwatosa concrete,
grass nipping at my calves,
dust blanketing my feet,
the divots in the dirt
cradling my soles.
it wasn't out of wrath
that this land hurt me—
it was my own inexperience,
my own haste to engage
with a friendly neighbourhood youth.
but i was experienced with that Wauwatosa walkway,
and that Wauwatosa walkway wanted me wasted,
wanted to see me fall.
maybe it's because we
(White people, obviously)
have forced that land to settle
like we've forced those
whose word "Wauwatosa" is
to settle. or maybe
i'm just a klutz.
at the time, i thought,
this is a sign,
a concrete demonstration
that this land does not know me
and that i do not know this land.
look at this child, this third-grader,
moving through this field
with such ease and grace.
that could never be me.
then he twisted his ankle, too.
i guess we weren't so different after all.
last time i twisted my ankle,
it was my left foot.
this time, it was my right.
maybe Pine Ridge just wanted to balance me out.
maybe it wanted to leave its mark on me.
maybe it wanted to tell me i didn't belong.
maybe it wanted to claim me as its own.
maybe it was trying to tell me it's the same,
the same grass and sky and wind as back at home,
but just on the other side of the river
(or, you know, my feet).
but i don't speak the language of the land,
so i guess i have to be content not to understand.
i haven't travelled much in my life,
haven't seen much of the world.
the three prior trips
i've taken as an adult, though,
i got a tattoo as a souvenir.
but not this semester.
instead, what i brought back from Pine Ridge
was an aching in my heel whenever i walk.
every time i step on that heel,
every time i feel that pain,
i think of that land and how it felt,
and how my home is not the same.
i guess i didn't need to have someone
paint Pine Ridge into my flesh.
it could steep into my body
all on its own.