Tāwhanga Nopera

My body is like a shell

Bereft of its holder

Void within

Empty emotions

I remember you once in real life maybe?

Maybe it was a dream?

We went to the same primary school

The same person perhaps two decades apart

I was the black one

People could see me

I couldn’t hide

Those lo-fi polarioid days living near the beach, walking the entire length of Bowhill Rd to go to the beach or Thompson park, me 5 or six, my sisters two years apart either side of me. It’s a loooooong asf road. The things we’d encounter, especially the racists, we knew where we’d likely get trouble after so many previous experiences of racist cunts, or men with giant dicks jerking off looking at me, naked lying on their towels in the dunes, the golf course with all those angry old men and their stoney hard little balls aimed at us.

We aaaalways went home with many stories to tell our parents

Except the ones I’d keep to myself

Years later I hooked up with an older bro and he mentioned where he grew up too, I told him about Bowhill Rd and instantly he said “the house across the rd from the kindergarten near the start”. I couldn’t believe he was one of the milkboys who did the run past my house, I used to watch their muscly whiteboy legs and think about the dunes. Our whānau must’ve been so visible for us to have stuck in his mind, we only lived there for maybe like three years.

This calcified body with all its form, things stuck in there

An empty shell lolling listless on the ocean floor

Tāwhanga Nopera (PhD, MFA, Dip. Art and Design, Dip. Māori and Indigenous Studies) is an artist and academic who works as the Health Promotions Coordinator at the University of Waikato. Tāwhanga intends for their research to help toward wellness pathways for takatāpui and LGBTQI people, through kaupapa Māori knowledge and practices. Tāwhanga’s research and art investigates marginality and is grounded by te pā harakeke, or the nurturing family structure at the heart of Māori identity. Through raranga – the traditions of Māori weaving, Tāwhanga explores the forms of relational knowledge within our bodies. Tāwhanga has a particular interest in ways that individuals are impacted upon by notions of power, and seeks out transformative pathways from traumatic experiences. Tāwhanga has whakapapa to Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Wahiao, Ngāti Tahu, Tūhourangi, Ngāti Whaoa, Ngāti Tarawhai, Ngāti Rangitihi, Ngāti Āmaru and Ngāi Tawake.