Split Tooth

by Tanya Tagaq

“What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music….And people flock around the poet and say: ‘Sing again soon’—that is, ‘May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.’ ” SØREN KIERKEGAARD, Either/Or

Smells unleashed from the spring thaw lift us into a frenzied desperation for movement. The air is so clean you can smell the difference between smooth rock and jagged. You can smell water running over shale.

Lichen smells sweet. The green lichen smells different from black. In the spring you smell last fall’s death and this year’s growth, as the elder lichen shows the young how to grow.

Inhale small fears they turn into doubts into words into ideas into anger into hatred into violence. Exhale large fears and large words they tumble back onto you it’s easy to get buried by our own mirrors. Inhale small fears and they whisper and travel to your mind observe them and thank them for trying to protect you. Exhale acknowledgment of the beauty within your instincts and the courage to love small fears. Inhale hard love suck in the smell and reward reap eat chew swallow devour all the goodness and love that is given to you. Exhale calmness in acknowledgment of the beauty within the courage it takes to not fear love.

The simple truth is we are simply an expression of the energy of the sun. We are the glorious manifestation of the power of the universe. We are the fingertips of the force that drives the stars, so do your job and FEEL.

The clean and hollow crackle of walking on shale is still one of my favourite sounds.

THE TOPOGRAPHY OF PITY Look at other humans with pity. Why are they so downtrodden? What could possibly have happened to them? What could possibly have happened to you? They may see the consumer sickness They may see the pride sickness They may see the detachment sickness Your belongings won’t save you Money won’t save you, even if you save it Money has spent us, as we have spent it We look upon the scarred earth with pity What have we done to her? Isn’t it she who has given her minerals And electricity To spit us out, Give us life? Only to suck us back in Just so she can breathe with the seasons? Just so we can be her topsoil? Perhaps she looks upon us not with the love of a mother But with the same indifference we lend to our lungs With the same indifference That we give the homeless human

The indignities we suffer as children will only grow larger as we get older, so we are told. That seems impossible.

Getting old is so gross. Watching people slowly rot is unnerving.

We ARE the land, same molecules, and same atoms. The land is our salvation. Save Our Souls.

The land is our salvation. Breathe. Fuck. Feel. Empathy is for those who can afford it. Ice will crack, blood will flow. Sun in Ice. Ice in lung. Speaker of tongues. There are so many ways to be empty. Ice in lung, flush of cheek, blood in mouth.

We didn’t know we would spend the rest of our lives running Or we would have slowed down

Their love for each other was indistinguishable from the hate they felt for themselves.

Seventeen is an age of freedom.