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Krystal Juffa
Krystal Elizabeth Selwood is a Youngsolwaran based in Samoa, and is of Papua New Guinea and Samoan parentage. “I stand firmly with the belief that anyone and everyone should not be deprived their equal right to feel and believe, among other things I believe in a peaceful future and a stable society.” |
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Dear Marshall,
Now that you’re old enough, this. Is your story. I was the child that got raped by the hands that seeped past my body and vigorously down my spine, I cried seamlessly oceans that filled the biggest basin of 30, tears that swallowed 60 million 90 degree angles that faced each other with the same four grey walls. Your father followed without “how art thous” and rather slipped out slurs of hot blooded desires of empowering fingertips, conquering my every limb and scrapping my tongue numb, and with the many sands of time, you our child was born “Jolet Jen Anij” or as your father later named you John Marshall of the 180 in the era of 1788. They named me “peaceful” in a tongue at the time, had he not have had disputes with his brethren and had fled to my shores I wouldn’t be tangled in cobwebs of ships that sunk through my flesh, that sparked ever so deadly, in the tears I tried to drown consciously equating explosive power of 42.2 megatons drowning you, my dear son. But tell me, how are you? Do you still have breathing complications? Are your lungs still struggling for life? Burnt holes in your eyes that run skin deep. How are your children? Do they know who they are? Now that you’re old enough, this is your story. Sincerely, your mother pacific. |
My skin my raincoat Possible to feel welcome in my own home, I call my skin my raincoat. Stars that seemed only alive when you’re about to leave falsely in your graveled seat sinking boat. I saw my mother get dragged by the limb and beaten by that thing they call protection, by the man who carelessly wiped not a flinch of his grin as he pulled her, I could not shed a tear rather cry within my blood cells that boiled in the entrails of my “what is it called?” That pulsating throbbing thing on the left side of my chest so bare and battered that has been snatched along with my “what do you call it?” that veracious act without chains so invisible that hurt without restraint where I can stand alongside what I want to say. My brother of 200km and my father without a foresight left in him, who refuses to believe me anymore. I feel I have feet that refuse to work anymore, with bones that refuse to function, a tongue that’s stuck and cannot move, hands that don’t feel a cent of attention. Help me! my brother, I’m only drowning in this flood of repressed affection and hand-picked restraints of whips that hurt no more. My truth you only see in black and white, detaining me of my culture, my land and my children. I’ve been sour sipping crude cups of neglect filled with nonentity but faceless words and stray. I’m shackled in my own despondency, but I won’t fall, I will live on, for I call my skin my raincoat. A dedicated piece to our West Papua brothers and sisters. I stand as your sister 200km near. – Krystal Elizabeth Selwood |
Tagata Fōlau I le vasa
My dearest children,
Hear my plea.
As days have flown into the orifices of the now, you have forgotten to honor me as your
mother,
Must a crippled greed hunt your limbless feet my children, a peril so dawning you see not of
my pain,
Must you be so silent now,
Be not still my children you have a voice to share,
I gave you wings and a mouth,
The teeth of a sharp cry
A heart of stone and a mind of gold,
Weep my tireless weep,
The years have come to haunt the beauty that I once was and as I fight to stay a floating
My organs fail me still,
Forget me not my dear children, your mother fights a tiresome war to thrive a tailless spine
of unwanted poison
Beware my children this cancer I fight, and I fight for you, though if you must know this
cancer grows I cannot bare to fight alone,
I write to plea with you my children, cry for me I'm slipping away,
I plea you spare me the poison I still bare scars of,
Strong I am not, but forgotten and neglected I feel, summers that glazed my gleaming face
and rains that gave me youth are now painful to touch,
Weep my tireless weep
Though the shores are now sour and my lips of salt forgive me I still fight for you
A call of caution my children, I plea to live
Must they sail to open my slowly shut wounds and retouch my broken scars
My bones so frail my time stolen,
But a time has now come, where you must fight for me too,
Thrifting sifting and unchanging winds that once strengthened me are weighing heavy on
these shoulders I carry
Voyages once brought fruit my children, yet so sweet, so benevolent the fruit has been
poisoned,
Like the waves that count the tides and to the mountains who wait the suns touch,
This kinship of mother and child
Children to grandchildren and grandchildren to the ground
Hear my plea;
Now that I write without voice to a croaking hand, hear me now I have my hopes written in
the grains of sand,
You have forgotten who I am and therefore forgotten who you are,
Have you ceased to watch the tree bend a narrow bend, my estuaries a treasure you have
gone blind,
Fear not of what must happen but will come, I write that you raise your voices, stand beside
your brethren and fight this fight
I call for I see not, I cry that one day it could be the way it should be
Weep my tireless weep,
Reconciled with the forests beneath your feet a day where you and I become one again,
I once told you my dearest children that I'd protect you still,
But the time has stripped my baring arms my children I bare to stand not,
Might I take the time to remind you the beauty you once knew is losing its ties, and for you
my children
A thought, a cry a hope will keep me alive,
I've stretched a bed of deep comfort for you across a million stars under a thousand skies,
Abandon me not,
For I am you.
And for you to lose me, would be to lose you.
Sending my love,
Your mother, Magellan.
My dearest children,
Hear my plea.
As days have flown into the orifices of the now, you have forgotten to honor me as your
mother,
Must a crippled greed hunt your limbless feet my children, a peril so dawning you see not of
my pain,
Must you be so silent now,
Be not still my children you have a voice to share,
I gave you wings and a mouth,
The teeth of a sharp cry
A heart of stone and a mind of gold,
Weep my tireless weep,
The years have come to haunt the beauty that I once was and as I fight to stay a floating
My organs fail me still,
Forget me not my dear children, your mother fights a tiresome war to thrive a tailless spine
of unwanted poison
Beware my children this cancer I fight, and I fight for you, though if you must know this
cancer grows I cannot bare to fight alone,
I write to plea with you my children, cry for me I'm slipping away,
I plea you spare me the poison I still bare scars of,
Strong I am not, but forgotten and neglected I feel, summers that glazed my gleaming face
and rains that gave me youth are now painful to touch,
Weep my tireless weep
Though the shores are now sour and my lips of salt forgive me I still fight for you
A call of caution my children, I plea to live
Must they sail to open my slowly shut wounds and retouch my broken scars
My bones so frail my time stolen,
But a time has now come, where you must fight for me too,
Thrifting sifting and unchanging winds that once strengthened me are weighing heavy on
these shoulders I carry
Voyages once brought fruit my children, yet so sweet, so benevolent the fruit has been
poisoned,
Like the waves that count the tides and to the mountains who wait the suns touch,
This kinship of mother and child
Children to grandchildren and grandchildren to the ground
Hear my plea;
Now that I write without voice to a croaking hand, hear me now I have my hopes written in
the grains of sand,
You have forgotten who I am and therefore forgotten who you are,
Have you ceased to watch the tree bend a narrow bend, my estuaries a treasure you have
gone blind,
Fear not of what must happen but will come, I write that you raise your voices, stand beside
your brethren and fight this fight
I call for I see not, I cry that one day it could be the way it should be
Weep my tireless weep,
Reconciled with the forests beneath your feet a day where you and I become one again,
I once told you my dearest children that I'd protect you still,
But the time has stripped my baring arms my children I bare to stand not,
Might I take the time to remind you the beauty you once knew is losing its ties, and for you
my children
A thought, a cry a hope will keep me alive,
I've stretched a bed of deep comfort for you across a million stars under a thousand skies,
Abandon me not,
For I am you.
And for you to lose me, would be to lose you.
Sending my love,
Your mother, Magellan.