Rachel Trow
Prada personality
This is my bag of trauma
My avant-garde collection
Of crimes committed against me
Oh how I love my purse of poisons
Pick one
My upper-middle undiagnosed ADHD
My vintage colonisation trauma narrative
My parasocial social responsibility
And the tongues I tore from ex-friends’ mouths
A cut-throat kete
The handle is made of clout chasers
Their bones keep the bag nestled in my elbow
The outer is made of gatekeepers
They sing sweet nothings on my hot girl walk
Use code BETH20 at checkout
I drag it every where I go
To mahi, to the club, to the function, to the urupā
Where I lay out my possessions for my ancestors
And hope that they are proud
Horoia ō ringaringa when you leave
I collect traumas like eclectic sea glass
I put them on my story, for transparency
And then I put them in my bag
I view them in my memories two years later
Close friends only
Ancestral quartet
Above, bones clatter against each other. Ancient Kāti Māmoe chatter. They’re strung across the top of the canyon, floating taonga pūoro. They tell the waka where to go. Karaka mai.
You sit at the front of the waka, alone. There are others behind you. You don’t know who they are—you don’t turn to look. You float down a ravine, you and the others. The waka moves silently across the top of the water. No one paddles. Kua tau.
As you near the end of the canyon, you pass through a waterfall. The mist makes ghosts of you all. You land on a pumice shore. Voices rise from the hollows of the stones—like Te Pō. From nothingness, potential. Kōrero mai.
You try to answer. Your jaw unhinges like that part of the karakia you’re supposed to say all together, but you can never remember the words. So it hangs there, empty. Āwhina mai.
Rachel Trow (Kāti Māmoe, Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Tūwharetoa) was the Dux of her primary school and it’s all been downhill since then. She enjoys reparations, climate justice, and Oxford commas.