Oops I forgot about Dessa

Dessa is a rapper and writer based in Minneapolis, and a member of the indie hip-hop collective and record label, Doomtree. She has released two EPs and three albums as a solo artist, and has published two books of poetry and creative nonfiction. Her latest album with Doomtree, All Hands, was released in January 2015.

“The Great Discontent”
Interview by Tammi Heneveld
October 13, 2015
https://thegreatdiscontent.com/interview/dessa/

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I forgot to say that Dessa is one of my influences (in my post a while ago). I used to live in Minneapolis.

Obviously we loved her there.

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My father was a paper plane
My mother was a windswept tree
My little brother’s nearly twice my age
He taught me how to meditate, I taught him how to read

I grew up with a book in my bed
I got these dark circles before I turned ten
Heard my mother with her friends worry it was something she did
To get such a serious kid

But I’ve learned how to paint my face
How to earn my keep, how to clean my kill
Some nights I still can’t sleep
The past rolls back, I can see us still

You’ve learned how to hold your own
How to stack your stones
But the history’s thick
Children aren’t as simple as we’d like to think

Before you came along I was a lone cub
Fell in love with language, tried to tell the grown-ups
About the storm clouds, the weather in my head
Hadn’t heard the word for melancholy yet

Then you came in five years behind
We thought you couldn’t talked, turned out you were just shy
Mom said it was serious, Dad said you’d be fine
I thought you were the prophet of 1989

You were so tender we thought something was wrong with you
So patient we thought that you were deaf
You were so solemn, so tiny but so ancient
Mom took you to see doctors, you scared her half to death

And I made you a library
Of tiny books with spines two inches high
You didn’t say too much, but your smile
Taught me how to quiet down my mind

But I’ve learned how to paint my face
How to earn my keep, how to clean my kill
Some nights I still can’t sleep
The past rolls back, I can see us still

You’ve learned how to hold your own
How to stack your stones
But the history’s thick
Children aren’t as simple as we’d like to think

You slept in my bed
And if I kept quiet
I could hear all the voices in your head

When the wagon tipped, I prayed over your body
I asked God to take the damage out on me
Ten years later, he finally gets the memo
Sent it to accounting and knocked out my front teeth

But you came to and took my hand
And held my eyes, and
Me and you had a long walk home
So we decided not to cry

Now we’ve got a grown-up love
And I know that’s how it’s supposed to be
Same old story, Mom gets Easters
Lets Dad have Christmas Eve

I won’t pretend I don’t remember
How unusual we were
The little mystic and his handler
All some children do is work

But I’ve learned how to paint my face
How to earn my keep, how to clean my kill
Some nights I still can’t sleep
The past rolls back, I can see us still

Dessa
“Children’s Work”
Skeleton Key, 2013

“There’s something different when there’s such a gap.”

Dessa
A conversation in Electric Fetus
2013

Jesus she is something else.

Unbelievable.

And what’s even cooler? She was a philosophy major ❤️

Like me.

In 2013, months into my recovery journey, in a small infamous record store called Electric Fetus, my mom and I watched Dessa perform just after Parts of Speech was released. She signed the inside of the CD and we talked about her song “Children’s Work” and my sister and me. We also were relatively far apart in age. Dessa said to me, “there’s something different when there’s such a gap.”