well, [in thick black ink, siapo]
you broke me open.
so i seek you
out again
to heal
(lou tupuga — what would they say now)
try ssssever all links with the past
but it keeps coming back to bite you,
weil lo’u kuna.. (i can hear you snicker at the cliché)
‘ia nofo i lalo (stay close to the ground)
where are we going? (some supermarket excursion)
when are we going to see all this as-yet-unshown footage? ;)
sound punches holes in silence, in watching
low-frequency. tilted crosses with fingers, fa’afetu
carving up space. eyes like aiku.
tasi lua tolu-
(now echoes of something else)
wake, tasting
moans in the mouth
(nah, but nah: would you fuck one tho?)
Live. Your. Life. (whose life?)
begrawe.
deep
down
low.
[break] when cis-het-able indigenous people say,
“we are still here”
we think,
youdontknowyoudontknowyoudontknowyoudontknowyoudont
knowyoudontknowyoudontknow you.
aua — fa’alogo mai
‘you’ exist because of ‘us’
aua le va
if you don’t know us
how can you know yourselves?
{breathe} gender is in body (or not)
gender is in voice (or not)
gender is in clothes (or not)
gender is in moving (or not)
and how (got love for that)
female intersec[t]s male
says: “I Am Fa’atama, Fa’afafine, Fa’aafa”
(and expecting no mention? uce…)
(we are the ffffirstbbbbirth)
(hear us roar) (hear — ) (now watch us bloom).
give, receive, carry — Life (now hold that-)
the divas, the queens, the kings, the studs
‘auivi o tala tu’umumusu
(and is this it? ‘ia sola, leave the church hanging.)
later, later, later
watch night dissolve into cigarettes outside
and the familiar become strange
draw stares in from outside and other
we walk the streets
see their heads bow, eyes hit the pavement
make way for the niu akua
now watch us as we go
— Luka 林-Cowley