Knowing Before They Knew

I stained my white T tripping over my laces.

I knew better than to keep walking with them loose. Every step i took they'd tickle my ankles, wet and grimy from the city's sins. I ignored them because it wouldn't happen to me; I mean it hasn't happened to me since before i discovered velcro shoes that lit up green and purple. Talk about a pep in your step, and how quickly you can lose your pep with one step.

I ate shit on the sidewalk.

The embarrassing part was that there was nobody there to witness my embarrassment. I had to walk away with blood leaking from my nose, steadily dripping on my t-shirt without anyone knowing what happened except me. now i was doomed to explain myself, OR fabricate a story about how i was kidnapped and escaped and you should've see the other guy. I wouldn't dare lie but don't tell me you haven't thought like that when you've been desperate for attention.

It wasn't even a cool white T. the one where stains give it an edge and make people laugh with its origin story; No, it was as common as the story itself. I don't even remember where i got the shirt. When i thought about throwing it away it was as quick as the fall. I could wash it, bleach it, save it. But when i got home i just threw it on the bathroom floor to fit the paranormal story i was playing in my head; The one where i died, became a ghost and the cops are confused by the evidence because they only believe in logic.

We're fucked up, you know.

We ignore our intuition just like the colonizers taught us. When they segregated us from the spirit world it became harder to believe in ourselves, to trust what humans call "gut" rather than an ancestor poking your belly button. The ultimate signal of dissent was knowing before they knew; The Celia's of the world who killed their masters from my home state of Missouri. I'm proud of that, not of Missouri but that i can trace my geography to a woman who executed on behalf of her intuition and succeeded in killing someone who claimed to be her master.

I'd rather die than be held captive. just today i was thinking about a scenario where i was held gunpoint and given an ultimatum to get in the car or die. Oh, how i believe my response would be, "Then kill me right here mother fucker." But just yesterday, a guy randomly said to me "let me see your guns" to which i responded by slowly lifting up both arms until i registered the demand. "No" i asserted with my head bowed. He had the audacity to end his power-infused request with "your shoulders are huge." Confused i laughed and scoffed, "Thanks?"

I certainly would get kidnapped if his shoulders were larger than mine.

I like to think i'm tougher than i am. But i'm just a girl who trips over her own laces, who foreshadows and has premonitions and ignores them. The colonizers did me dirty, and now i want to haunt them. But living just across the energy plane sounds miserable; Either you want to be seen because you're stuck OR you're passionate about merging all planes, determined to prove people wrong because believing is not seeing. I've had all types of spirits present themselves to me: the good, the bad, and the posers. You think ghosts trip over their long victorian dresses? Victorian era women certainly have a vendetta against colonizers.

Fuck those corsets.