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Milla Brown The greying street held a plethora of people. All hurrying, all with places to be, all ignoring what was before them. With heads bent and umbrellas hovering above them, they moved with a careless abandon. Splashing water in their wake as they waded through the fast forming puddles. The water was a disease. A contamination. Something not to be touched or endured for longer than necessary. It told them to run and do it quickly. It told them to get out of the horrid

Gemma Moore The wind takes up the most space between us now. If I lie on my back and stick out my tongue, all you have to give me is one hundred years and a few more days, and I’ll grow moss like all the other gravestones that brave the wind. I’m braving it. The air looks thick, rosé and grabbable, floating just out of my swipes. I glare at the overbearing clouds, repugnant of their dominion. Moody teenage weather, I cussed it out, but all it could hear was something like unh

CW: Violence, needles, body horror (1) You’re on Kelburn campus in the Hub. You try the doors. Locked. The glass is cold under your hand, and inside the tables are empty, chairs pushed in like everyone left in a hurry. It’s late afternoon, and the sun is dropping behind the buildings, turning the windows orange for a second before the light slips away. The wind moves through the courtyard behind you, carrying the faint sound of traffic from Salamanca Road and making the posts

Dandifil after Toni Morrison I arrived to meet the ancestors at the edge of the world. I arrived breathless, dripping of sweat, snot and tears and my jaws clenched so hard my vision blurred. At least ko oti te ta’ua. They say my ancestors were the first surveyors of the ocean, some of the first to master and practice aerodynamics. Engari i luga i te maunga nei, They say I might be the first of this ancient agni, first of this ocean salt to be given flesh and bone. Ko

Zara Boon I sit and listen as my belly dancing class discusses petrol prices. The other Arab person in the class isn't here today. I miss her familiar words, the warm accent, the laughter as we trade dialects. They worry about the shipping costs of their costumes. I regard those prices with a bleak indifference. For me, no strait has to be closed to leverage power. I would pay a fortune in transport fees if it meant my olive trees were left alone. Instead, they burn, and I

Dalas Kruger A perpetual tourist, bags forever packed, passport forever full. Never truly calling anywhere home. I live between arrivals— half in translation, half erased. Each place a version of myself I almost become: the coffee here is darker, the rain speaks slower, names blur in the mouth, and I forget which language I dream in. Worlds keep folding and unfolding, their borders breathing like lungs. Maybe the world is my home, maybe I have never been a citizen anywhere. I

Author: Ox - Ngāpuhi CW: Hate Crime, Addiction, Suicidal Ideation respite noun re·​spite ˈre-spət 1: a period of temporary delay 2: an interval of rest or relief The following is a collection of poetry around my experience leading up to, and being in, respite earlier this year. I never thought I would end up in respite care. As my mum would say, that was where the ‘crazies’ went when ‘their life went to shit.’ Well, I couldn’t really say I wasn’t one, and that mine hadn’

Hayden I'm told it’s the cost of living, that butter costs Nine-Ninety-Nine yet my uncle slaved in a dairy shed, making barely a dime. So why is butter Nine-Ninety-Nine? He hardly takes a break, never time for his daughters, missing Saturdays and Sundays– just so butter can cost Nine-Ninety-Nine. But like a knight of the old, he risks life and limb, riding a quad like a steed, braving the rain with standard in hand. Yet in many a rural town with names like Uruti, Eltha

Milla Brown You are looking for a place to live. One comes furnished–big rooms, lots of light, no holes in the walls. At the mere price of your left leg and a sliver of your soul. The second grows unrecorded forms of fungus from the carpet. For the price of every meal you ever wanted to afford. It’s pay day. You glance at your balance. It’s in overdraft and they will be coming to find you. Best to bury your head in the sand. You grow jealous of the trees as you wander

Dalas Kruger When The Tūi Call The tūī call at dawn each morning, weaving honeyed hymns through the pale light. Their song spills over our sleepless joy, over hours spent stitching dreams to words— the sun always seemed to rise too soon. By dusk, your bags lined the door. You said goodbye like a stranger would— a soft, obligatory kindness. That night, I lay awake counting heartbeats, each one thudding where your voice had been. The tūī still call at dawn, relentless

Penelope Scarborough the bus stop on courtenay place knows your secrets it watches girls pop the nights like pills new world wine oh so cheap & delicious hates the way kids drop night ‘n day vapes down the back of the benches like their disposability might make the cancer less permanent feel the way the trees here are hungry for wind skeletal veins always scratching the night but it’s late now – the roads are empty the kind of night that sits rotting on your skin whe

It started with the bedspread. Red, threadbare—the kind of fabric that clings in summer, that snags if you move too quickly. You said it looked cheap, felt worse. But I watched your hand linger on it when you thought I wasn’t looking, stroking the roughness like it calmed something restless inside you. The first cigarette burn came on a Sunday. You were propped against the headboard in those boxers you always wore, waistband loose, curls spilling low. I remember staring, caug