A guide in constructing the braids of an Indigo child

Written by Indigo Loau

She opens her eyes to indigo,

A duty of noble,

An ethnic gradient of cultural ambiguity.

Are her eyes dark blue or Saiga?

A kava girl diluted by 124 litres of milk only tastes like palagi

No matter how far you stick out your tongue in a haka, we cannot taste the mana in you

Privilege is a cruel entity, spitting the insinuation that detriment exists elsewhere To form a concoction, a specimen half-pure and half-entitled

That’s interesting, you don’t look Islander – but you don’t look entirely white either

Analysis occurs into the symptoms of ethnicity that arrange themselves in my skin, Percentages correlate in my curls and barricades lie in its pressed ends. But please – touch it.

Touch my hair.

Braid it and straighten it and scrunch, brush and burn

Tug it to either side of the playground so I may know which to join Take bundles to keep among your bedroom souvenirs

Pack locks in your pockets as passports and panoply,

For your perilous journeys to unload in confronting conversations to say, “No it's okay — here’s a friend of mine”

Use it as verification, as idle icons to your persona

May you not be questioned again

Strum your fingers through its strands,

To sound the mimic of an instrument unlike your own

“Soiia Afakasi, kapugi lo muku kele”

Tie and twist your matted perceptions to pry my person

And – Heave me through the honest waters of time,

So I may sputter and swallow the bile of the Voyage — enduring the resonant sounds of both victories and volatile cries rooting my guilt and confusion

But please – when the gurgle is too much for you to bear — desert me on the beach, Let the salt tear fire through my lungs,

Taste the tears of exhaustion and grasp disappointing, dissipating sands,

My gaze rises to the skies for direction

The ancestors chart the stars that sing in the first son of the first son,

Fa’amoemoega

A song where once we were warriors, now submit to the water that dilutes time

So we can open our ears to the resonance of a war cry

In the eyes of an indigo girl