South

our streets grow tread marks in the pattern of tapu cloth, the men in blue roam them recreating Da Vinci — bronze skin mona lisa who knew your last supper would be a $2.50 Big Ben pie and a bottle of stars— will we ever breathe the same freedom as our brothers north and west? cause oceania’s waves feel a little too familiar in the backseat gps broken cause somehow it only circles round these streets— south, you are —but— a direction on aucklands map, folded tightly into the plastic corners of red and blue led lights, police siren jams but not the jawsh 685 type . . . forever branded as the bottom the south of new zealand . . . but it’s okay, we’ll tau’olunga on their disrespect wake them up at dawn with our cheehoo’s breathe a brown colour palette back into their colourless minds love us enough to not need it from anyone else grow with each other, be strong with each other block out their white noise with white noise fill the cracks of Aotearoa’s pavements with more reasons to love south . . . and put us back on the map . . . unfold us out of the plastic corners of red and blue led lights help reverse the damage of our roots with the healing of our new generations

cause leaves still bloom even more beautiful after the fall for when our streets grow tread marks, we’ll repaint them with coconut oil and fala paongo, when the world wants our faces to kiss the concrete, we’ll still be safe in the arms of papatuanuku cause when things go south— we’ll deal with them like south— with the love our roots nourish us in . . . bronze skin mona lisa, who knew your last supper would be a feast of the colonised minds... undo the bleaching of your brown colour palette refill them with all shades of you cause no direction will define where we’re really from, south

— Caitlin Jenkins, Papatoetoe High School