Who are you?
I’m a hattak iklvna, half man half woman, just trying to do right in this world. My name means “to rise up” and was given to me by my mom and my sister as a gift, that I always rise up to tell it and that I rise up to face it, whatever is in front of me and maybe even what’s behind. I come from the Choctaw people on my Mama’s side and colonizing Texans on my Daddy’s side. My cousins think I’m a preacher cause I uplift people, but I left the church almost a decade ago.
I’m sort of an atheist who is still looking for ceremony and ways to engage with the sacred. I’m a poet, it’s the primary lens that I look through. I’m always trying to process, decipher, make meaning, harness power, pace myself, and balance what’s most important and what needs to be written down.