I & R16 Myths & Facts13 (story) Loading...12 Video12 Fayen d'Evie12 Text10 Crisis10 Reproductions9 Sound8 Listening8 Improvements8 Favourable Conditions7 Poetry7 Photography7 Memory7 Environment6 a border can have no boundaries6 Sculpture6 Points of Connection6 Performing the Archive6 Sincerely Yours5 Installation5 Fandom5 Casual-Paradise5 to listen, not to preserve5 Painting5 writing4 Language4 Archives4 Performance3 Augury – The diary of birds3 Artist Walks3 interview3 Labour3 Record3 House of Mother Tongue, House of Other Tongue3 Pandemic3 read2 Precarity2 Textile2 Gentrification2 fiction2 WS × Social Studio2 Essay2 Community2 Paradise2 music2 listen2 The Region1 Anna Dunnill | Processing Plant1 Translation1 vampires1 TERRA: Memory & Soil1 talking1 spoken word1 Angna Mein1 documentation1 Sex1 exhibition1 scores1 Productivity1 Politics1 movement1 dust1 choreography1 interpretation1 Improvisation1 Description1 augury1
I & R16 Myths & Facts13 (story) Loading...12 Video12 Fayen d'Evie12 Text10 Crisis10 Reproductions9 Sound8 Listening8 Improvements8 Favourable Conditions7 Poetry7 Photography7 Memory7 Environment6 a border can have no boundaries6 Sculpture6 Points of Connection6 Performing the Archive6 Sincerely Yours5 Installation5 Fandom5 Casual-Paradise5 to listen, not to preserve5 Painting5 writing4 Language4 Archives4 Performance3 Augury – The diary of birds3 Artist Walks3 interview3 Labour3 Record3 House of Mother Tongue, House of Other Tongue3 Pandemic3 read2 Precarity2 Textile2 Gentrification2 fiction2 WS × Social Studio2 Essay2 Community2 Paradise2 music2 listen2 The Region1 Anna Dunnill | Processing Plant1 Translation1 vampires1 TERRA: Memory & Soil1 talking1 spoken word1 Angna Mein1 documentation1 Sex1 exhibition1 scores1 Productivity1 Politics1 movement1 dust1 choreography1 interpretation1 Improvisation1 Description1 augury1
Alice Skye
“Am I allowed to say your name?”

Hey
I’ve been thinking a lot about time travel (about you)
How sounds and scents and sirens take you elsewhere
How the lemon gum oil I keep in my room takes me to the driveway back home
How we used to suck on rocks because it tasted like the smell of rain on hot ground
How sometimes I don’t have words for a memory
How sometimes I don’t want to be here at all

 

I’m not yet in a place where I’m thankful for how hard things are – are you?

 

“God is Change”
Words by Octavia E. Butler that I see stick-and-poked onto the skin of another writer I look up to
I didn’t grow up with a God                I didn’t grow up with you
am I allowed to say your name?

 

I didn’t grow up with a God but I would still pray
I’d kneel on the floor, small brown girl messy hair, put my hands together and say your name
I’d pretend I was Lilo in the movie and it was easier to say
It’s me again, I need someone who won’t run away
I’d pray for you to be brought back from the dead
Thought it made sense to take me instead

 

In school we’re told to fill out forms with boxes that never feel big enough
Next to religion I write: I’m Aboriginal
It doesn’t need to make sense to you

 

I didn’t grow up with a God but I talk up to my ancestors.
Is mum happy? Please. Am I going to get better? Please
Can I find a parking spot right out front so I’m not even later to my appointment than I already am?
Please
Know that I am trying                       to move with ease

 

Burg: Spirit, soul, that which leaves the body at death
I used to think your burg lived partly in the family dog
I would lie with her under furniture while it stormed
I wondered if she missed you too
The day she died I felt like you were all over again
I sat in the bath crying, wondering how long it would take for me to fill it
I’m Alice in the movie

 

Now I’m older I know you’ve stayed alive in all things
In the cowhide you made that lies on my bedroom floor
You made it with your hands and I stare at mine sometimes
To remind myself that I am thankful for my body even though I hate it
To remember that i’m made up of more than grief
That I am my own and yours to keep 

                                                                              changing

Alice Skye is a Wergaia and Wemba Wemba singer/songwriter living in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia). Since her first album, critically acclaimed Friends with Feelings she has signed with Bad Apples, the Indigenous-driven label that celebrates and prioritises’ blak excellence. Alice’s album I Feel Better but I Don’t Feel Good was produced by local artist Jen Cloher and released in July 2021. Plans to take the album on the road in 2022

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