The Lagoon of my Backwardness

You stand there 
so sure
wide stance 
and elbows akimbo.
I squint back at you 
unsure of your intent.

I was friendly. 
Lord of my island.
You were my guest 
on a perilous sea.
You received my hospitality.
I handed you food 
and water.

You pushed me away.
Built up a fort; walls of coral,
privy hedges of bougainvillea.

I am now your ward.

My open hands are jabbed with thorns.
You came to my island and pushed me off.
I am no longer welcome in the land I was born 
where I was part of Nature’s cycle.

My island expands and shrinks with tides.
The ocean’s water—breathing sand.
You banish fish from the sea and clouds from the sky?
My world upends 
in your colonization.

How could you alienate me?
“Allow” me to tread water until I tire.
You drown me in your possession 
of my life.
Will you crawl on me like a pontoon?

I was once a proud inhabitant.
A fisherman, a sailor in a boat. 
I made charting tides and stars.
My language and culture—nothing? Savage me,
as you sit there reading books to sail, ignoring heaven and nature.

You bring bad things.
Too many things 
to my island.
It will sink under the weight.
Everything good is stripped and sent away for profit.

But for now 
the stars and tide are safe 
from you.

You will never learn—superior you.
While I tread water out in my lagoon 
in my backwardness.

—-

I grew up on Guam. My friends were local. This is what they talked about—their part of the Micronesian (Pacific Islander) experience. This is my retelling of their story, because it needs to be heard.