Not all dreams are true, they said. Great fire burning low, waves clapping on the shore like thunder, and there I was, the child.

A child, they said, I was only a child. No one listened, no one at all. They didn’t care, not one bit.

It was them, the birds. The birds with the shining teeth, the ones like a serpants smile, they were here, now.

Praying to the gods, “Let the pale strangers from the sky go away from us, see in the hearts of these creatures,” but I got nothing, for I was a child.

The zemis, my zemis, he spoke to me, in my dreams he was, there, but now, he was here, right here, right now.

They took me, the child with them on a baby canoe. I tried, I tried to be tough, but I failed, as I was only a child.

Falling deep into the frigid waters, everything was silent, everything was still. Days it took me, but I arrived, home.

Telling my people as I shook, “DANGER,” they refused to listen, as I was only a child.

To young to understand, to young to fight, to young for everything.

We were now one of them, pilled in clothing, pilled in sorrows, they didn’t listen to me as I was the child, the child no one listened to, that child.