* Content Warning: the following poem deals with suicide. *
If you or someone you care about needs help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or the Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860.
How do you honour a Rainbow when all you see is red?
When all you are is red?
*
She tripped in on her crutches,
Her face red from anger and blood.
(The blood within her, that made her Mi’kmaq).
The teetering crutch launched her to the chair.
Her head cradled, her legs coddled
They’d never be straight.
SHE’d never be straight.
She loved Kenomee, with her piercing eyes,
Her professorship, her adoring fans.
But Kenomee only pitied her, in her pithy pity.
“Perhaps tonight,” she’d simply say.
And then when she limped in,
Five or more students, the others,
They’d be there. And red skin met red eyes.
And they’d never be together alone.
Justtogether apart.
Teasing had motivated her once;
As a child she’d fought for her voice.
And it was heard. And here she was.
Mi’kmaq with heart cracked
In a college far from her hills.
But the teasings still:
Skin PIGment. Four legs, four eyes.
LESBO! LEGBOW!
But – Rainbow. Bow-tied like a noose.
How do you honour a Rainbow when all you see is red?
When all you are is red? You are seeing red, being red…
She should now be fleeing red.
The shores of the Ottawa-
Its rocky bed lay/spread her plan.
Her books dropped, her crutches thrown.
Her rainbow ribbon skirt on stone.
Two steps to freedom. No crutch leaning.
No weight of learning,
Nor beholden to Pride of tribe.
Two steps to freedom. Drumbeats afar.
She stepped into the brown-green waters,
Only seeing red.
About the author: J. Ivanel Johnson is the pen name for a disabled author who now lives in the Appalachians of New Brunswick. She has been a high school English/Drama teacher, working with marginalized communities of students on a First Nations rez., in a mostly-Muslim-attended inner-city school and with learning disabled classes in 3 countries. Among her most recently published fiction is “Iron Bone”, a short own-voices story in Nothing Without Us by Renaissance Press. Nominated for a 2020 Prix Aurora Award and currently on syllabus at Trent University, this anthology is ground-breaking as it is solely about disabled characters written by disabled authors.
See more of J. Ivanel Johnson’s work on her website, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.