Do My Ancestors Keep My Name on File?

I go home to the reservation every other year and each time my cousins remind me how Mvskoke doesn’t roll off my tongue as it does theirs and how my grandfather’s family is not buried in the tribal cemetery because he

fell in love with the
White Man’s Poison
down in San Francisco
and never came home

And even though the color of my people doesn’t paint my cheeks like it does my sister’s, it will not wash away because my mother curses blood quantum and even though I keep my tribal ID in my pocket, the small plastic rectangle threatens to fall through the hole in my jeans

And I find myself telling
my kindergarten class
that I am Only Irish

because it’s easier than explaining how my great-grandfather had his head shaved and his body beaten and how in his case they saved

Neither the Indian
Nor the Man

But then I find myself screaming in the second grade because Amanda is dressed like an Indian princess and I know this is a lie because she already told us her family is French, so then I tell my class about my people I sing songs and I dance at the talent show and boys laugh behind their hands because

Jingle Dancing is
not as cool as the
magic act that 
came before me

And again I wish I could just be one or the other, not both, because life seems so much simpler for those who aren’t walking the line, so I talk about it only sometimes, when it’s relevant, the first of  November maybe, if my mom has spoken to the principal that year and I get a pass to leave class when it’s time

to build the missions
because haven’t we built
the missions enough

And there are not enough students at my middle school to start a Native Student Union, so I leave the valley and come back for high school, to hear my friends laugh, when I finally share my Native Name because it sounds funny to ears that don’t listen to Mvskoke stories while they go to sleep

And I hide what the
Oklahoma Elders saw in me
that day because maybe it does 
sound funny and maybe that part
of me stays in Oklahoma every time
I come back, or stays at home when
I go to school

But then I get that part of me tattooed across my heart and my fingers and suddenly I can’t pretend to be one or the other. Now it’s my job to be both