Have you been following along with the weekly writing prompts? This month, we are featuring writer Jónína Kirton, with her piece based on the You Are Here prompt. If you haven’t been following, you can view the prompts here.
“What I offer is still in need of some revision but I am a slow percolator. I work for months and sometimes years on the same piece setting it aside for long periods of time before I return to it. This was a short turn around and although still in need of tightening I like where this is going. It has provided a way into some themes I have been contemplating and actually never imagined writing about. This is the gift of prompts. Many times they offer us new material that may never have arrived any other way.”
You Are Here…
From here I can see so much more. I see that privilege makes us blind. Not colour-blind. That might be movement in the right direction. I now see how privilege whispers seductive sweet nothings about how much we deserve everything we have. Like an abusive lover, it isolates us from those that would tell us the truth. It takes us down to the underworld of haves and have-nots, where thought patterns of oppression are reinforced by the 24 hour commercials of wants that entice, use bait and switch methods until we are mad with unseen losses of liberty. Harassed by our own minds, we sink deeper into world domination mind games where the loser becomes the persecutor when freed.
Thought patterns, acidic in nature, with just one glance burn those they come in contact with. Sidetracking sorcerers, we want smokescreen magic of brainstorming parties where we all pretend everyone has a say. Complicit in their oppression we teach models of oppression; charging them for the privilege of listening to us. Our tyranny wrapped up in Christmas paper traditions where a White God saves us, and we devotees of oppression become complicit in our own subjugation. Invaded, annexed portions of ourselves scream out, refuse to surrender bring an illness, but don’t worry they have a pill for that. Our body’s wisdom, now quiet fills with (muted) sighs. Its requests considered a profanity we are to ignore. We are to coerce the body, all words mouthed, all murmurs sent underground where they propagate, utter threats to each other. If you speak softly you lack confidence. Find your power, awaken your kundalini and the next day you too can be a spiritual teacher. Marketing strategies, networking, removing all negativity leaves you friendless. Widespread well-wishing a dodgy business where those who do not participate are deleted. Corrupted fragments contaminate, distort, taint, pervert, altering you forever. Your programming is in need of revision.
Jónína Kirton is a prairie born Métis/Icelandic poet who currently lives in the unceded territory of the Coast Salish people. She graduated from SFU’s Writer’s Studio in 2007. Her first book of poetry, page as bone ~ ink as blood, will be released in the Spring of 2015 with Talon Books.