I like crossfit
And slam poetry
Which probably says a lot about me
But rest assured
When neither me
Nor my muscles
Are screaming
We are sleeping
Wistfully dreaming
Though we cannot decide
If we are bleeding
Or beaming
Forever confused, frustrated
And amused at myself
And all of my wannabe friends
We are searching for some
Sort of identity
In all the wrong places
Looking for somewhere
Both our feet will land
Without holding
The rest of us back
Fully English but
Never left the southern hemisphere
Immigrant or coloniser
I’ve never been able
To tell the difference
Mother born and bred
In the rolling
Waikato hills to generations
Of farming fathers
Descendants of colonisation
Father born in Portsmouth
Blossomed at the base
Of the Rimutaka Ranges
His mother from money
Father from war
Myself
Born in Tauranga
Raised in the Edinburgh of the South
Never bred
Not yet blossomed
I have learned
Karakia and shanty songs
To cook, to calculate
Shamanic meditation
Christian prayer
From books
And from the trees
No religion
No one, single culture
No stereotype to fit myself into
In my bones
There is salty strength
Marrow that remembers thistles
Harsh winters
Wars of old
My flesh however
Is soft and sweet
As kumara or kōwhai nectar
My battle still
Is nature versus nurture
Looking for my culture
When I am already living it
Blinded by myself
Striving for excellence
In hopes of finding home
At Oxford or Cambridge
Knowing it will never happen
Soul searching
Beneath pohutukawas
In hopes of feeling something
Other than unsettled
Aiming for a science degree
But writing poetry
Instead of doing chemistry
I am trying to be kiwi
But granny was right
The sun never sets
On the British Empire
Even if
You look the other way