Braided Back Home — For Simata
I left.
For school. For work. For change.
I packed bags with pens and paper,
signed leases down south,
learned how to study whiteness in buildings
and brownness in footnotes.
Affiliated courses from Algonquin College & Carleton University: Nunavut Sivuniksavut gave me the first real pride in being Inuk.
I came back different.
No baby on my hip.
But I carried life anyway.
Carried it for my uncle.
Held it in grief.
Held it for Britney Mae,
until she could carry herself.
⸻
She stayed.
Simata didn’t chase grades or student numbers.
She chased tracks in the snow.
Listened to wind like it was the radio.
Her language? Fluent.
Her rifle? Confident.
Her hands? Feed people.
She dropped out of school,
but never out of culture.
Out of some colonial system,
but into the land.
⸻
We grew up together.
Now I speak in both tongues—
Inuktitut still warming my throat,
English sharpened by essays and cities.
She speaks with seal meat, sinew,
and a love for her family that doesn’t need to be posted to be real.
She has Theo.
Three years old and pretending not to like when I tease him.
But I see it.
That sparkle kids get when they’re safe.
She built that.
Her partner? Loving.
Her kitchen? Full.
Her grandpa? Close.
⸻
Me?
I know how to present in Ottawa,
how to apply for grants,
how to take notes at a conference and still feel like I’m holding ceremony.
Her?
She knows how to skin a seal,
gut a fish,
smoke a cigarette while catching supper.
She knows Kimmirut like I know the south.
Like I know which bus takes me to Rideau street.
Like I’d know how to act in a resort in Punta Cana.
⸻
We met again, on the ice.
Not planning anything big.
Just close to town,
a hole in the ice.
I was breathing heavy, talking to fish.
She was just passing by.
No big plan.
And when she reached into her pocket for a smoke—
the fish bit.
She laughed. Quiet. Real.
Said it was fun because of me.
⸻
We’re not the same.
She never left.
I always did.
She raised a boy.
I raised memories.
She holds a rifle.
I hold a certificate.
She feeds Kimmirut.
I came home hungry for meaning.
But always meet.
Again and again.
Not in competition.
Not in confusion.
Just here.
Two sides of the same drum.
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