A reflection on an evening of Karaoke in the back of a Korean Restaurant on Robson

This is not my song

with it’s lyrics which weep at the impossibility of the over-prized face of factory love

and the chords which could also be stand by me or aeroplane over the sea or last kiss

and the sexist assumptions and adoptions the voice insights and plights any knight of feminism

and the perfection of pitch which questions the bitch for trying to be ugly and the queen for trying to be clean,

But I’m singing along and smiling high.

This is not my place

Where the music cheers with tones of answers

and the food is rich as the fabrics are rich and the lights are high

and the servers are deckled in daring coloured tattooed sleeves but maintain the quora of composure

and the beer glasses have never known a proper slam

But it’s somehow a nice way to pretend.

These are not my people

with their ancestors of participants

and well-worked tongues bouncing Cree and Dene and Creole

and their flowing hair which carries DNA and identity

and their tinted intention which unites the honesty in the air and addresses all the worldly issues through silence

But I am honoured to be Anishinaabe by adoption.

This is not my name

with it’s colonial ties to a matrimonial enemy

and it’s resemblance of normalcy, attempting to be the only twist-tie in the ocean

and it’s army of femininity that asks my slippery desire to remain in the seat at all times, for my own safety

and it’s cast-off existence on the muscles of the mouth, like air off a sleepy exhilation

But it’s charactered with my spices, and matches all other simple truths of being

I am only human,

Alas! But, yes.

By Sarah C Louise