crowning baby of the literary scene // software @buildkite // writing @thwupbooks
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ALT It is, baby. It is. for Georgina my nan messaged me this morning saying that she thought the Maaori word for trans woman started with an f in her own clumsy way I like to think she was tapping into the whakapapa connection between the people of the Moana fa’afafine being the word she was grasping for a Samoan one it brings me back to this one time i was on my way to the dairy in Hamilton East and a group of young Pasifika kids called out to me Good morning, fa’afafine! despite not being Samoan i’ve never felt more seen and it’s in moments like this when my nan is trying to find words in a language she once spurned when kids find kindness for a stranger in a dress that yeah hell yeah whaea this world is made for us
ALT I didn’t know you were Raukawa until I looked it up today your wikipedia page already in past tense but like of course you were a Raukawa wa we’re born to light fires and it was you who set a blaze inside me of I could be whoever the fuck I want to be and it’ll be okay when I found out you had passed (on social media because of course it was social media) I put on Pokarekare Ana (a song my nan used to sing to me when I couldn’t sleep as a kid) and had an ugly cry in the lounge afterwards my partner and I went to Motu Rakiraki and swam in the awa the water travelling out before us and behind as you are and will continue to be
