i missed out on boil up & fry bread as a kid.

 

my mother didn’t like the taste 

so every hour i take pictures of my own face

check the photo of my grandmother for proof

 - am i my tūpuna’s wildest dreams?

 

different angles give different results: 

sometimes i look like a coloniser

like, yesterday i made a pipe with a kombucha can

smoked half a nug through split pink aluminium

 

i coughed on the last toke, ran ash over my wrist

& remembered how much my dad’s funeral cost

 

e hine, taupiri te maunga 

repeat it every hour

one day i’ll sink 

back to the whenua we're from

like i wish my placenta had done

 

instead, it burned in a concrete coffin

in an institution that continues to

        burn me

so tonight i’ll jump in the ocean

cleanse off the year

 

i want the back of my throat

to taste of tangaroa & plastic

as my tongue curves around hine raumati's 

thighs, later and later she comes

a threesome, we hongi

to ward off the coloniser condition

 

fuck you, don’t tell me to diet

when we're just struggling to survive