Patrick Teed

“Leaving? To leave? Left? Language can be deceptive. The moment when they ‘left’ the Old World and entered the New. Forced to leave? To ‘leave’ one would have to have a destination in mind. Of course one could rush out of a door with no destination in mind, but ‘to rush’ or ‘to leave’ would suggest some self-possession; rushing would suggest a purpose, a purpose with some urgency, some reason. Their ‘taking’? Taking, taking too might suggest a benevolence so, no, it was not taking. So having not ‘left,’ having no ‘destination,’ having no ‘self-possession,’ no purpose and no urgency, their departure was unexpected; and in the way that some unexpected events can be horrific, their ‘leaving,’ or rather their ‘taking,’ was horrific. What language would describe that lost of bearings or the sudden awful liability of one’s own body? The hitting or the whipping or the driving, which was shocking, the dragging in the bruising it involved, the epidemic sickness with life which would become hereditary? And the antipathy which would shadow all subsequent events”
― Dionne Brand, A Map to the Door of No Return