I got a bone to pick with capitalism and a few to break.
– Refused, ‘Worms of the Senses / Faculties of the Skull’
my blood is worth bottling, so I’m told as though
I’m made of gold
as if I’m worth my weight in clinking coins—
but I tiptoe around this auctioneer’s fairground, quietly,
acting as though there’s nothing of value inside me
cos all these sly salespeople size me up like this is a meat market
fetishised flesh up for auction, or slaughter
sleazy leers that weigh me and measure me butcher me
I’ve seen the gleam on every licked lip
concealing carving knife tongues
lifetime of little remarks mark and re-mark me
I got thick skin but it’s no good thing—scar tissue as sensitive as tough—
maladaptive trait from poking and prodding
and wondering and weighing
my blood against their knowledge
of a curated culture—a pale imitation of what lives and breathes—
concocted by experts in ivory towers,
published in papers without our permission,
bound up in books we can’t afford to read,
sermonised by grifters inside stolen sandstone walls
under whose scrutiny
I WANT TO MUTINY
I scrunch myself up like waste paper instead
and chew on life-long meditations, like:
– how to lease my labour in balance, with dignity
within a market monetising indignity and imbalance
– how to talk about my culture
without the vultures
descending on my words,
to pick and flick and peel and pull
so the sores just keep on weeping
– how to say the things I-need-to-but-shouldn’t
or they’ll attract wights like flies,
like feral camp dogs
sniffing round and humping the corpses of my ancestors
– how to hold onto my integrity
when cold neoliberal logic drills into me
and the colonial vacuum sucks the marrow from me as fodder
I want to be sustained but the terms are extractive
for an early casualty of late-stage capital,
dreaming dead desires—
mobility
upward through
of trickle-
down
economics
this pyramid schema is not so classy,
reducing us to fucking tiers
& if I don’t laugh I’ll cry
poor me!
I’d sell my soul to speak a language
that doesn’t commodify the sacred
or express despair and disdain in economic frames
but here I am—
speaking words that colonised our old people’s tongues
same time their babies and wages were stolen
bit rich!
(well. Uncle David’s on the fifty dollar note now
but I never get to look at his face for too long)
no free rides here
the only inheritance I’ll ever get
is all this trans-generational baggage I never wanted
and these precious bones get heavy
and when you’re poor—can’t eat or dream—
all you wanna do is slip a femur from your thigh
pop it out the way a black bean slips its skin
crack him clean open, pour
the bright rich marrow
into a bowl
and offer it
to whoever is sniffing around
for a meal ticket
or even just a meal
