The Extra McChicken

Even though it was dry
And cold
I,
Bold,
Ate it
After a double fish-0-fillet
A passport
To every deep wish
Packaged in ocean blue
Tucked in between
The Rangi and Papa
Of diet culture

I eat when I’m full
Because I’m a perfectionist
I’m the best
I’m not stressed — I’m free
I can eat like the teen I used to be
In this perimenopausal body, I’m young
Can still afford dumb, delightful decisions
Because I have an irrepressible spirit
Hedonistic
Can still eat whatever, whenever
And go the whole way
Fuck it I’ve kicked it
Says the inner junk food addict
While gorging to prove
She is loveable, adorable
And full of it.

Selina Tusitala Marsh

Selina Tusitala Marsh (ONZM, FRSNZ) is an Auckland-based Pasifika poet of Samoan, Tuvaluan, English, Scottish and French descent. She is a former New Zealand Poet Laureate and has performed poetry for primary schoolers and presidents (Obama), queers and Queens (HRH Elizabeth II). She has published three critically acclaimed collections of poetry, Fast Talking PI (2009), Dark Sparring (2013), Tightrope (2017) and an award-winning graphic memoir, Mophead (Auckland University Press, 2019) followed by Mophead Tu: The Queen’s Poem (2020), dubbed as ‘colonialism 101 for kids’.