vessel-licious

I do not forgive you, Canada.

I do not forgive you for cutting the tongues from the mouths of our children, and in turn their children, and their children. "Give me back my tongue you piece of shit!" I scream in a voice like yours, as thousands of others scream with me, "You stole it from me, give it back!"

But you mark a day on the calendar a holiday, as if that will fix anything you've done. Generations of abuse. Generations of silence.

I cannot speak the language that flows through my veins. The language of my ancestors. I and many others have been robbed of that, as well as our traditions, our ancestral lands.

I do not forgive you. Not because I am bitter at a pain long since passed, but because this country continues to perpetuate the harm of my people. Our reservations don't have clean water, our rights to our land is not respected. You pollute our streams and cut our trees for money and greed and yet ask for forgiveness and expect it to be dropped at your feet like everything else this earth has.

I refuse to forgive. I refuse to reconcile without truth. The truth that my people's suffering, that you caused, is just a big PR stunt to you.

You don't care. You never did. Not about us.