R-3

There are a few mantras that resound throughout my mind often. Of these, I've been contemplating fervently "Kill the coloniser in your head." By the very nature of the current social order, we all have internalised many sets of rules by which the coloniser thrives. Rules governing beauty, business, behaviour. Rules determining who fits into society and who must be steamrolled or suppressed or suffocated to maintain society. The coloniser seeps into all of us, whether we notice or not. We are steeped in it. The coloniser tells you whether you are pretty, whether you are a person. Ascribes value unto your being. And those of us who do not fit into the singular model of the coloniser - and we know what limited scope the coloniser has - are incessantly battered with scolding, loathing, demeaning, and other such negative undertones offered us by the coloniser in our heads.

The only means of survival is to kill the coloniser before they overtake your heart. If they take root therein, not only will your mind be ruled by that which seeks to exterminate you; so, too, shall your actions, your intentions, become vessels of colonisation.

I am reminded of the yeerks from Animorphs. Sliding into your brain through your ear, overtaking your thoughts and actions, all in service to their empire.

Are there ways to inoculate against the coloniser? Of course. Keep studying, keep learning, keep wary. Even after the coloniser in your head is dead, you may find it striving to become a haint. You must always remain vigilant, even after you've thrown its corpse from your mind. For the cells, though inert within, shall reconstitute without a watchful eye.

I remember how, in my youth, I – without realising it, without knowing – determined myself to be ugly. I couldn't think of people who were beautiful who looked like me. Dark skin, dark eyes, never the epitome of beauty. Perhaps a decade ago was the first time I looked in the mirror and said, firmly and honestly, that I found myself pretty. That my eyes were gorgeous. That my skin was beautiful.

How many children, the coloniser a cancer in their developing hearts, go without thinking themselves clever, capable, cute? How many grow into adulthood implicitly finding their parents ugly? Finding their children detestable? How many people hold themselves and their loved ones as burdens, as without value?

The coloniser is insatiable. It consumes endlessly. Leviathan is its nature. It says, "I want; I crave; I take. All is mine." Land. Stories. Humanity. The coloniser claims all as its own. It fashions rules and laws and mores which support its cancerous existence.

Kill the coloniser, again and again, forevermore. Because if you do not, it will kill you. It will kill your spirit. It will use your corpse to kill the ones you love. And it will applaud you for your destruction, of self and others. It will whisper such sweet lies to you, convince you that your destruction is for the betterment of the world, of those you love. It will fill you with the murderer's glee. Allow you to justify kneeing on the necks of your children, to justify killing yourself, to justify the stifling and squashing of others' hearts.

Tonight, I've watched a recent film, titled, Sinners. In many ways, it was a story about consumption. I wonder how many recognise the significance in choosing an Irish antagonist. They were colonised, the Irish; they are occupied, still, by their coloniser. It is recently that the Irish were considered white by the coloniser; their subjugation in America deemed a success by the coloniser, they were allowed to appreciate the privileges afforded the coloniser. The same is true of the Italians. The indigenous shall always be under threat of the coloniser, and the coloniser shall always seek to find its way in. And it must always be invited, be welcomed. It nestles close, sinks its claws and fangs in, takes deep draughts – and releases once it has converted you. It cannot handle the exposure of a bright, clear sky; it suffers in sunlight. Only by openly defying it can the coloniser be slain. You must call it what it is; you must wrestle with it in the open, and then, and only then, might you pierce its heart and watch it burn to cinder.

Beware, beware; though you yourself might be free of its infection, those who are not may prove a danger to you in the future. So slay the coloniser where you see it; do not invite it in, but keep it out in the open, where all might see it and its vanquishing. And pass the story on, forevermore, so as to keep it from finding and festering fissures in future foundations.