Leyla Neilsen

I’m not fluent but I will learn

This my whakapapa
those who came before
those who will carry on after
kia whāia te māramatanga
this is where I come from

Ko te maunga / my māori
disconnected from our heritage
whakamā
embarrassed
whakamā

Our language was lost
our culture was ignored
seen through
slowly dissolved
as a colourless solution

Ko te awa / for us to follow
our descent into the future
our river the new path
reconnecting our maunga to the sea
a new opportunity to recover the untold
I am learning where I come from

Ko te waka / steers us down the awa
strokes of our oars like an engine room
our culture / what we were born with
aboard your waka and deliver
Philippians 4:13 / you are capable
I will share where I come from

The bones that lay beneath the iwi
same soil that will always remain
potential, pride, power
the home of our māori
our ancestors’ stories light our path
my home is where I come from

Our collective / ko te hapū
engari he toa takitini
reconnects me to the book
I am the new chapter
my hapū will always remain fluent
I come from chapters

The walls of my marae / my foundation
He toka tū moana, arā he toa rongonui
four walls 5ks west of Turakina
colours of pride love compassion
my place where I stand and belong
I come from my marae

Ko te ingoa / represents me
my mihi is me
I’m not fluent but I will learn
tēnā koutou katoa
I’m not fluent but I will learn

Lucas Te Rangi
Year 12
St Andrew’s College, Christchurch

Bath time

Patience is a habit
the bath has learned
from her many lovers.
They come
and go,
waxing and waning
like the moon.

Her presence settles over the soul
as easily as over warm flesh,
like the musk of steam or
dew drops.

Her heartbeat is the sound of water
gently eroding
her thighs
as if sculpted from sand,
her breathing
the sound a shell makes
when you hold it to your ear.

Her perfume is incensed
vanilla orange blossom candles
burning wicks like gasoline.

She is where a soon to be mother
sprawls,
belly glistening with sweat and steam and blood,
cheeks sparkling with tears and wonder.
The bath can cup the new life
against her porcelain skin.
Those days, her waters hold
the whispers of a doula.

She is where a med school hopeful
skins herself
of scrubs and good manners,
dissects herself, searching for any
fissures in the façade,
a girl who grew up hearing that she could never
be a doctor
now awaits exam results
like a telegram home during war.

She is where a survivor scrubs herself
clean
of the probing hands
that invaded
the borders of her body,
colonised her
like indigenous land.

She is where a fourteen-year-old girl
discovers
her body
for the first time
and learns how to create earthquakes
inside herself.

The bath cradles each
experience
like a newborn.

After sunset
the moon’s light splashes
across the bath’s porcelain skin.

She too is lonely.

So, for tonight
they find a home in each other’s arms.

Hannah Wilson
Year 13
Raphael House Rudolf Steiner School

Blue

How do you define a man?
dig through skin to find a heart and call it blue
grasp my frail hands in yours
and snap my fingers

scatter the bones over your garden
———————————__——-to feed the shrubbery
gluttonous greed grows quickly
a need for more
you will take it
without looking back
and I will let your vines envelope the old me
until all I have left are nameplates
————————————————chucked under beds
———————————————-___—-collecting dust

I am my old sweater on my chair
the one I wear to hide my chest
cover my scars in hopes of lifting my shirt to find a blank canvas
———————————————-___————a glimpse of what I could be

let the colour spill down my neck
and fill the crevices
with something beautiful that you would like
a mother’s shaky hand greeting her new found son
the sob of a despaired drag queen
————————————————punctured skin illuminated by street lamps
eyes crinkled in delight to be wearing my own skin

but I don’t dare to look
———————————————————————-I don’t want to

the only blue you see
is my bruised flesh
pinched and manipulated
to the figure that stands here
a shadow
of masculinity
the failed experiment of a rebellion

you pull out a camera and I touch my face
willing to mould it to your vision
—————————————————–compressed to your brand of trans
surrendering would be a sigh of relief

to accept
the stamp of womanhood

purchase my period products
crinkling plastic of blooms and blush
———————————————————————-and think yes,
—————————————————————————this is me

linger between the gates of heaven and hell
tainted blue and pink doors

scrutinise each curl
how it folds

fear holds the question in my throat
———————————————-___————Is it enough for you?

Louie Feltham
Year 12
Samuel Marsden Collegiate School

Old man

I’m sitting and I watch the old man from the street rest and unfurl from his linen
a pack of Dunhills.
He twists off the cellophane and eyes his catch with thatvintage gleam
of noon-stripped old lowlifes, naked,
howling at their cigarette moons.
Cars and their drivers blur on by, each turning their heads as if to say
yes man, light that cigarette for all you’re worth.
Yes, man lights it.
Draws each drag out long like a bones player shifting keys.
He exhales each time only
a whisper of thin smoke-suns that twist, convulse mid-air.
I have a moment when I think of my father and I
driving along an afternoon’s length of country road; we could’ve been both fifteen
naive
and I feel as if right here and now I’ll weep watching this old
new nomad smoke,
pulling our car breakneck along the asphalt,
filling the valleys and valleys and valleys,
hauling us through them,
here to someplace to every place,
maybe, most likely, somewhere unideal,
where infants are born dead but still live.
My father and I, our cities become flame, the skyscrapers strip the blue skies,
haul from the seas
an urgent thunderstorm now upon us all and still.
The old man smokes.
Almost at the filter now.
Watching our cars roll on by.
Looking with those eyes at each and every person as if to say
yes man, go on your way, go on your way.

Sebastian Macaulay
Year 12
Wellington High School