Choosing My Name (Hawaii)
~By Puanani Burgess
When I was born my mother gave me three names:
Christanbelle, Yoshie, and Puanani
Christanbelle was my “English” name,
My social security card name,
My school name,
The name I gave when teachers asked me for my “real” name
A safe name
Yoshie was my home name
My everyday name,
The name that reminded my father’s family
That I was japanese, even though
My nose, hips, and feet were wide,
The name that made me acceptable to them
Who called my Hawaiian mother kuroi (black),
A saving name
Puanani is my chosen name
My piko name connecting me back to the `aina
And the kai and the po`e kahiko
My blessing, my burden,
My amulet, my spear.
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My last painful prayer (Hawaii)
~By Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio
I woke up this morning wondering
If by some masochistic twist
I slit my wrist
Would it taste like grandma’s kiss
Would my veins spur of a broken bloodline
Born from a tempered woman’s volcanic spit
Would I
A decedent of kamehameha and cook
Find a way for papa and wakea to defray my pigment deficient skin
Or would my wounds long for adam and eves olive leave bandages
Because I woke up this morning feeling torn
Broken and foreign
Worn by my woven shoes and tangled roots
I woke and realized my view of truth was skewed
On the 18th of may
I celebrate the day I was born 10 skin shades softer then my history
I wanted SOO BADLY to be Hawaiian
And so I allowed myself to be miserable
Forcing my tongue to fit
Able to born native language spit
To Fill the cracks in my accent
Trying to mold my voice to sound the way my ancestors did
I spent my youth tracing roots downright and backwards
by 18 I realized
I had forgotten what forwards looked like
So today I’m relearning how to see
Because the salt water I spent years sifting through trying to find the key to my history
somehow blinded me
grandmas tears were supposed to heal me
But they don’t pass as easily as you’d think
And her kisses felt a lot less like presences and more like
Emptiness
I’ve never felt so broken after an embrace
that I wanted to actually retrace myself
back to a pre touched state
My grandmother once told me
To pay homage and respect to your past is honorable
But at some point your neck will ache from you fear to look straight
Jamaica
If you ever want to live
You have to forgive
My grandmother tried to show me a path honorable enough to take
She prayed her way back to life
And I tried to bring myself into a church without feeling like I was linching my history
or burning my ancestors
but Every time I step into a church I feel like
I’m hanging and swaying
what do you do when its painful to pray
When enlightenment and dishonor smolder the same
Like my grandmothers pride burning at the stake
The day the missionaries came
And somehow I found her praying to my demons the next day
i’m confused
But I’ve always admired my grandmother’s ability to live
Even shackled, broken and restricted
She still finds a way to lift her hands in prayer to forgive
And I tried to follow her path
But I know I rather be Hawaiian than Christian
Rather write poems than scriptures
Memorize songs instead of prayes
I rather have my histories approval than the bibles
but whenever i become sure of this i remember
my grandmother
Who found some sort of inner balance
that i dont understand but can’t help but admire
And even though I might have been taught her prayer to their god is betrayal
I’ve grown to learn
Love is more rewarding than pride
And so No matter how detached my grandmothers values are from my history and attached to her church
Her love and approval
ALWAYS COME FIRST