INDIANS IN SPACE Juanessa Prince I do not know the word ‘god’ in my traditional tongue. I swear never to capitalize it. I read the bible, but only feel Creator when the wind whistles. My thoughts are formed in English, so I never truly know what I am saying. In a colonized galaxy of adamantine colonial power I am a dying star. I expand into the universe before being smothered by darkness— light stolen from fading particles. We were only specks against an unspeakable backdrop of horror I failed to understand. Like a planet out of orbit, I do not have a place in this “progress,” this solar system. I long for the freedom of a galaxy nourished by my ancestors of the plains: where the moon told her stories, the stars whispered directions, and spirits danced; when our economy was gratitude— soul, mind, spirit entwined in our hair— and our names earned. At first, they called us Indians. Then they took that from us too.
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