Mad And Lost

The difference between
what I look like
from the outside and
what I am like within
is three thousand
miles or so give or take based upon
the precise starting points
and exact destinations

or so I’d like to think

The distance to the village
where I thought I might look right
for the part
but didn’t
is four thousand miles

The distance to the rez
where by rights no one could trust me
to be who I said I was
is two thousand miles

in the other direction

I’ve been to both
Neither fit me well
or at all

You hear this and choose to question
why geography and history
should matter so much to me
when I live right here and
I’m the only one bringing this up
on a routine basis
an obsessive basis

If I’d forgotten all that
gotten over it
I’d have been happier
you say

You remind me that
I’m old poor and sick now
It would seem that should
matter most of all
not race and ancestry
Not missing any sense of home

Make a home here you say
It’s all that matters

I’ve lived among people like you
my whole life
and talked about this
the whole time

and somehow you still wonder
why I have been and will continue to be
mad and lost
all the time