a love letter to the rez gym

i love you, rez gym like a relative that never moved away like a door that has never locked you have always held me before i knew what holding meant

you caught me skin to varnished floor knees burned bright and stinging like i was being welcomed properly you watched me grow loud running your lines like they could carry me somewhere sneakers squealing prayers into your chest until one day we won something and i swear your walls leaned in closer to hear us shout

you know all our names even the ones we don’t say out loud anymore

you’ve heard our uncles their drums sending heartbeats into your rafters songs rising so strong they shook dust loose from the lights and our aunties laughing, yelling, calling fouls from the bleachers, like their voices could bend the game

you’ve fed us too long tables stretching like stories fried bread warm in our hands pops sweating beside paper plates spaghetti, fiss’ n rice, deer stew berries and whipped cream that kind of full that isn’t just food

sometimes the mic crackles someone calling numbers half in english, half in language voices overlapping people laughing, correcting, repeating we all listen close not just for the prize but for the sound of us

still here

you’ve held our small celebrations too my nieces and nephews’ birthday parties balloons tied to folding chairs cake smeared into laughter their voices bouncing off your walls like they already belong to you

and the bathrooms where we slipped away in packs me and my cousins shoulder to shoulder in the mirror gossiping, giggling, sharing lipgloss and secrets like they were something sacred

some days you kept me to yourself just me and the echo of my own breath like you were letting me rest inside you

other days you’ve carried hundreds of us our footsteps layered our grief and joy braided together so tight it felt like ceremony

you held me in white once but i barely recognized you twinkly lights strung across your beams linens and candlelight softening every edge turning you into something else entirely

for one night you weren’t a gym you were a sky full of small, glowing stars and all our people from every corner of our lives stood together within you eating, dancing, laughing love pouring out the doors when they opened like it had always been meant to happen there

you have held our dead too quiet and careful when the drums slow down when the voices break when we walk them in and carry them out

you don’t flinch you don’t turn away you just make space

rez gym you are more than boards and lines and hoops

you are witness you are a memory keeper you are the place we come back to again and again to be held

and maybe one day my children-to-be will run your length leave their own skin on your floor win something loud and shining maybe they’ll stand where i stood promising forever under your lights

and one day

when it’s my turn to be carried in wrapped in blankets and flowers and carried out to the drums

i know you will hold me just the same, like you always have