Wanted / Unwanted

So I guess it wasn’t normal,
Two years old running barefoot through the cedars chasing a pack of wolf pups.
I just knew that if they would slow down a little, I could catch up.
We’d play all day and become the best of friends.
But I hear panic on my mama’s voice as she calls my name.
One second to look back and shout, “Mommy, I here!”
I looked back again and the pups had disappeared.
There I stood all alone til I got carried home.
And I guess it wasn’t normal,
Thinking Cowboys and Indians didn’t always have to end in bloodshed.
As if I’m one of ‘these’ and you’re one of ‘those’ so that means we have to kill each other?
Lemme see that rule book, ‘cause I don’t think we’re playin’ this right!
But I wonder what they thought would happen,
Telling the skinny kid with the widest shoulders and blackest hair,
Why some people look at him with a sidelong glare.
I thought they hated me just because I was there.
“Nobody told you your family was Indian?”
Now the shutters fly back, and this new light makes my eyes sting.
Now it starts to make sense why people have called me certain things.
Chief. Tanto. Hiyawatha….
“Did that guy just call me Pocahontas?”
Now this is the part where it starts to interestin’.
Where the broken fragments of my mind start twistin’.
Where I try to make sense of the pigment in my skin,
While people ten times my number get pimped out on oppression.
Identity crisis, daily source of depression.
Wolf and Hawk speak to me like I’m the only one listenin’.
“Oh, don’t say that too loud, Kev. That doesn’t sound Christian."
Hate to break it to ya, kid, this ain’t the first time I haven’t fit in.
Too red for the white ones. Too white for the red ones.
Victim records don’t contain my family’s inscription,
So Dawes says I’m not allowed to claim that persuasion.
I get to rip my soul in half and check the box marked Caucasian!
So keep runnin’, little Wolf Boy! Keep those little legs movin’!
Don’t let anybody carry you back home because then,
You may never find your way back to provin’,
Who you are at your core because the pups have left you….
Again.
So let me set Sacred Fired to your doubts and misgivin’s.
I come from Cherokee, Shawnee and, yes, Europeans.
Chosen by the Great Spirit to descend from kings and NDNs.
So if I call myself Native, I don’t need your permission!!
But may I please have it?