#first person plural

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The Terrible Beauty of the Reserve
Billy-Ray Belcourt

Everyone’s uncle thinks that they are the world’s
most handsome NDN, and no one says otherwise.

Rez dogs roam about without having to perform
emotional labour for humans. They eat where they

are welcomed, which is everywhere. Most who live
here do not know that they are in the ruins of a sick

experiment that failed. Teens blaze to feel the
euphoria of being outside of memory.

We all bathe in the sociality of the hangover. It is not
that no one has time for themselves, it is that they are

always playing cards or talking about Connor McDavid
or carpooling to bingo or babysitting their brothers’ kids.

We all owe something to someone, so we congregate
under the pretence of debt, and this is always-already.

We all joke about falling in love with our cousins,
but we are all perpetually falling in love with our cousins

in a platonic way, because we grew up together and
no one was alienated by the tyranny of the couple form.

Vehicles pass through in droves, but no one looks,
so we drown together in the freedom of utter anonymity.

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Sun, 10 Apr 2022 09:55:38