Johan Sandberg McGuinne

Losing ourselves in thoughts,
we refuse to seek comfort in shared words —

we dare not dwell on this inherited trauma —
I do not want to turn myself inside out, to clarify
I do not want to explain,
I have never wanted anything less —

but to always remain this shared duality of ours

When I returned to school without you
the teacher who tore this language of ours from me told me

that

                                                            languages constitute a social capital
                                                          only to be possessed by civilised men

                                                          The ability to speak makes us unique
                                                                                                                      and
                                      neither animals nor this land, infused with your
                                                                            ancestors’ blood, can speak

And yet the ice spoke to you that night

Truth be told,
I never really understood him anyway,
and the foreign words burnt a hole through my ears
while I chose to believe his lies

He spoke Swedish to me, each word laced with pain

                                                                                  Remain a rigid nothing,
                                              the government needs your calcified tongue

I filled my lungs with forced laughter.

At school I built stone walls
around my heart.

and sure enough, they managed to reshape me in their
image – tearing our words from me.

I became a mute man

and

just like that,
having had my language stolen from me
I grew ever smaller.

Your absence is more tangible in this vacuum.



I tear myself from my dreams,
drenched in sweat

I,

and

my essence,
breathe you into existence.

Your shoulders kiss the jagged ice floes,
as our tongues find peace in the silence –
the water is cold
against your naked spine

Sometimes I ask myself
if our lives had been different

if it had been me,                                                                                                       
                                                                          and not you

who had found themselves trapped beneath the ice.

                                                                                                                  Listen
                                                                                                                    I say

I might be dreaming.

I never really know these days.

Facing me,
you wear your black hair like a cape
around your shoulders,
as snowflakes leave sensory messages on my forehead

We long to return,
but I know far too well

that this history cannot be rewritten

                                                     I don’t think it’s a good idea to go there.

                                                                                                      It’s snowing.

                                                         The two of us could stay here instead

Sure enough, I never said those words back then,
but in my dreams
my lips were sewn shut with threads of sinew

and

the ice covered my eyes.

The oncoming spring has quickly changed this place,
yet the cold of a hundred winters surround you.
Six feet under, the sun does not shine

My lips kiss the frozen ground.
The memory of newly picked red berries
linger,



                                                                                                                       but

the stomach remains empty,
and I dare not carry on.

I long for water

yet the thirst for my language
is stronger

Thinking back,
I could only ever picture you
resting cross-legged by the banks of Luvlie Geavhta.

The net-needle in your right hand,
with your fishing net spread across your lap

this inherited knowledge which is passed on from one
generation to the next

to 
find itself dying with me

Your hands

mimicking

butterflies chasing each other across the loch

You taught me once,
how to catch whitefish here
but I have yet to learn

how to retrace your fading steps

Winter

We were headed back to the land of our ancestors
straddling skidoos from hell

between towering mountains and ice-covered lochs

the sleet and ice soaked the two of us to the bone.

We undressed on the banks of the vast expanse

The wind made you soar,
though the shackles of time plagued you

Forced by a childhood rule to keep silent,
we dare not speak as we put on our shoes again

                                                                                                     Do not speak
                                                               the northern lights could hear you

                                                                                                                      and

                                                                                              tear you asunder

If the two of us open our mouths
if we dare to live.

And yet I speak

                                                I do not seek my death in these mountains

My voice echoes across the land
like an avalanche
of birds

I have yet to catch a single one of them

And in a freezing mountain lake
you drowned yourself

on a dreamt, yet daily basis

I keep a pale, white stone
in my left hand,
allowing it to sink into the blue of my veins

but trapped in a winter storm, there is nothing
that could change the course of these events

you become the yoiked essence of a river,
as you sing the creation of my being
or
yourself

who knows these days?

                                                       at night, we let our voices intermingle
                                                                   turning a dual longing into one

Once again, you walk yourself
towards your death

Jaame-aajmoe, the land of the dead, on Repeat

The roar of the ice rips itself into a billion pieces

and

I don’t quite understand what’s happening
but beneath the northern lights
the two of us disintegrate

As I return to the snowstorm
I try to make you change your mind one last time

                              My life is not meant as a sacrifice to a mountain lake
                                                          The two of us could stay here instead

They stare at me from the other side of death,
lips void of words

their black eyes burning like fires.

                                               do not fear the inevitable, we have to go on

the wind swallows us whole.



At last the spring arrives,
you set the sun loose inside my hollow ribcage –
but the pregnant land is still asleep

when I awake from my slumber
there will be trees, their branches covered with flowers
cradling the heavens above me



And I never truly knew
who I was talking to
that day when you finally left me

but I still carry your name in my heart
like an amulet from the old days

hoping that it will protect me from the evils of this world