Elise Sadlier
Don’t Do Meth, kids
My dad made me promise / never to be part of that demographic / that smokes meth / know too many who / chain their wairua to some trap house / lose themselves in glass vials / chase dragons and cigarette butts in gutters / commune with fallen angels / fingers hammered in / because they didn’t pay their ticks / I was at my friend’s house / her with eyes on high beam / she placed it in front of me / like an offering at an altar / I just shook my head / rolled my eyes //
I met another girl at respite / spent the past six years / melting crystals into her ashes / she muttered under her breath / and described her dead body in front of her eyes / I wonder what she saw / and I wonder what killed her / she told me that her pastor didn’t believe her / when she said she was possessed / and I was like / in my head / not out loud because I’m not stupid / well no shit / you’re a crackhead sis / letting stories of girls selling their bodies for a fix / wash over me like soap scum / and I left respite / with more demons on me / than I had / when I arrived //
You, the deep reservoir
whom others draw strength from
You were a child,
and your mother, in the house of grief
She took you to your grandmother’s
to stay a while
and some time more
Your grandmother was a firm woman
a deep cenote
cavernous and blue
brimming with the salt of the earth
It began with tremors
a diligent headache
and then
the tumours
blooming in her chest
like a field of poppies
Her head a wheatfield
the hair falling in tufts before harvest
her spine a rocky mountain range
you paint her nails while
her daughters argue in the living room
their mother is gravity
light
oxygen
Now red and blue light spills into the kitchen
Now you place a cold cloth on her temple
Now the throat rattles
Now the mirror is clean
Now you lay with her for three nights
Now you press her into the soft moss of the earth
Now the well is dry
She made of you
a spring
Now, drink in full
Elise Sadlier is a part-time artist and writer, full-time Sooky La-La. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons) from Elam School of Fine Arts and a Diploma of Māori Language Fluency from Te Wānanga Takiura. She is currently working on getting her first collection of poetry published.