colourful

You're culture is so colourful !

They say

They said

They say to me, to you.

So colourful , (maybe quaint ) .

So beautiful

So happy

Smiley happy colourful

Clap for me, dance for me!

Just smile and sing,

Hush,

Don't use your voice for discourse .

You say , Colour !

like in your

Skin

Lava lava

Foliage

Traditional attire

I say , elaborate !

it's more.

A riot of papaya innards ,

The shades of the sea that are known and unknown ,

The glow of the mosquito coils at the deepest part of night,

Blue tarps aglow from within , drawn down around the fale o'o,

Tusi Paia pages pink,

The glinting highlight on the back of the centipede ,

Coca Cola red, all the way out here even!

You say

like child's paintings

And imply

Infantile

Unsophisticated and simple.

But don't you know , child,

Don't you know

We know black

We know dark.

shadows so swollen

thick with ripe potential, Pulotu taught us that.

I buried myself in the potent soil,

And was born anew .

I burnt the candlenut,

And accepted it's soot,

Into my blood,

Through my flesh.

And the darkness snapped and sparked within me.

We never feared it.

Only dualistic dichotomies whispered falsely to us ,

speaking of hierarchies that have no grounding here.

Le Po.

The longest nights of our colonisation taught us of black so inky the fe'e is jealous .

Nights at the maumauga,

You'd never know such blackness,

When the stars run and the air presses.

Don't you know

We know white?

Even before your missionaries draped us in it and called us civilised.

The coconut revealed its inner and we knew white for it nourished us.

White graves, in the lap of the home , close to the heart .

Coral so white,

And clouds that tell of winds ,

navigators,

currents.

Paths between islands,

Our superhighways,

our interconnected realm .

We know black we know white .

We know .

It's not just for you to be

Stark modern balanced minimalist elegant cutting edge essential classic beautiful.

You deny us the complexity of being,

When you boil us down

To merely

Colourful.

Colourful

And quaint. 

...

do not let the hate settle into your bones

for it will surely seep through generations

your womb as conduit

recolonising your already colonised body

reworking your already weary mind,

usurping your narrative, tainting your line.

you are the house of your ancestors

you are the home of your children

you are both past and future, and you put it forth to be,

what your heart conjours will reconvene in flesh and blood,

so don't let their hate settle into your bones

for it will surely seep through your generations,

leach into your land when you are buried,

like dirty oil into clean water.

instead, fortify.

have love and give love, but keep your eyes open

resist

reclaim

rewrite 

reach out

and together, rise.

- Leala Faleseuga

stuck in hospital

Currently I am living in hospital while my twin girls are in the NICU unit. They came early at 33 weeks, and we are fast approaching our third week in hospital. There's a birth story to come, and it will appear over on the motherhood section of the website, hopefully in the next week or so. In the meantime, I have been scrabbling and scribbling bad poetry... late night rambles seeped in milk, tears, postpartum fluids abound.  It's pretty fraught times, in many different ways for many different reasons. Things are dualistic, elation and bliss, deep loneliness and sadness. This is not fantastic, it's just what it is, scratched in ballpoint and often disjointed and rambling.

---

6th July 2016: 8 days postpartum

tears and milk flow

teats and cheeks

trails and rivers

southwards

leaving tracks and traces on their way down

belly wound 

deep cuts

hurt words cut deeper

disappointed when I look at you

look and you are not there

phantom

***

empty belly empty core

one moment full and taut

next open and void

open to the elements

flowing with blood and fluid

cords and cords

cut theirs and set them free

fill mine so I cannot feel

I need them to come forth 

and be in the world of the living

***

in the lights I saw the reflection

of my passage to motherhood again

I saw the blood and flesh 

separate

into a yawning chasm

from which all secrets and knowledge spilt 

sacred womb full of bloodlines

adding to the legacy

I saw my body yield

to the drugs

to the knife

to fate and destiny

surrendering and surrendered

the pulling and pressure 

giving up the babies into the arms of the world

---

8th July 2016: 10 days postpartum

milking tits

slackest belly pulling in 

smiling scar and

scars unseen.

Alone, almost lonely

but I know the trace

of being with you 

and still I am lonely.

You came late at night

and you came for them 

I am blank and calm 

hurt tears well inside

pricking the surface only now and then 

in the warm womb light. 

Each time opening my mouth to speak

and closing it again 

and knowing to just let go a little more

it's better.

I dream you will betray me

but how can you betray me even more than you have?

Abandoned thoroughly 

and constantly reminded 

YOU left ME

for good reason (so you say)

justifying 

telling me I deserved it

taking your daughters from me

discarding their shell (me)

you are not here for me

you never were. 

***

milk flows

and cancels the tears

no more time for listening to the drone of your voice

as it justifies every cruel twist and turn

of the path

of the knife.

milk flows and washes you away

blood flows and cleanses me anew.

they cry and I repent

I confess and start again

washed clean by the milk and blood 

each drop one step closer

to letting you go forever.

---

16th July 2016: 18 days postpartum

weight so heavy

I could be carrying the stars

if only, 

i would welcome that, rather than the truth,

weight so cumbersome

the press of your hate.

weight so resolute, restrictive, reductive

it suppresses my milk,

using all my water for tears.

weight so thick

I cannot breathe

for the grief strangles and entangles,

snaking through me

tentacles into my womb

threading through my placenta

sucking it dry

and in a flood and blood

evicting my daughters. 

***

- Leala Faleseuga

sometimes I write...

Sometimes I write. There were times I would write every night, bad poetry, meandering musings, garbled anguished diatribes. Now and then I might put some up here...

This is a set of three poems written well over 10 years ago, when I was an 18 year old on my first trip back to Samoa. I spent a lot of time writing in a hardcover 2B5, vignettes, observations, poems, attempting to make sense of my experience. I wish I could find that book! I would love to see what else lies within it. 

---

dusk rolls down, it seeps down the sky
seeps so far down that the deep ground swallows it,
and spits out the night.
This is the domain of the flying fox and the centipede,
where what light that survived the slaughter,
will reflect off your oiled skin,
coconut today, warming and melting with your body,
leaving a fragrance in your wake,
mingling with the jasmine from the graves out front,
and the kerosene lamps,
as they fire up for the night.

***

in the quiet of the sullen night
fragrant air laden with the scent of memory,
and regret. i am...
and sometimes when the night reveals itself
just so...
i’ll sit,
back against the housepost
spilling into the dark
and look at all I have left of you
one photo,
framed,
and I see you seeing me
from out behind the lush ‘ula,
the lei
that I draped there for you.

***

shall I string you one by one
piece by piece and fragment by fragment?
every tiny circle as delicate as the last,
pliable,
watch as they each succumb to my needle,
passed through the centre with red.
hours i could put into you,
investing my existence in your creation,
and yet,
if my eyes did not search deep enough,
all you would yield to me would be meaningless beauty,
but look deeper they say....
pierce the surface
delve deep and excavate the flesh of you
search for you
your histories and your lost stories
past heroes and their sins and deeds gone by
all witnessed
from the neck.

- Leala Faleseuga

---