Brooke Forbes

Detached from well-oiled machines,

I’m am choosing a simple kind of madness. 

One where an inland property

provides not only sunrise views of sacred women’s sites,

but one where the repetition of daily rituals

enlivens a sense of place.

Ownership, you see,

is not something I have yet left behind. 

And in that space my decentralised ego

is shafted like scrap metal sheets,

growing with rust and forgotten purpose. 

Discarded metal holds an industrial feel,

but they are nothing but relics of the past –

half-completed renovations left

with wonder and fruitless ambition –

forgotten fragments

that collectively make no rhythmic sense. 

My room is removed from the kitchen area;

cabins cast away in the self-imposed darkness

of a lingering dusk.  

I find my mind walking through laps of time and memory,

engaging in playfulness

at hours previously unseen.

The steady glow of my phone at night

provides media updates

about the outside world that I readily disregard. 

Instead, my phone’s notes app is filled

with the steady typing of words

that fill hours others occupy with mindful numbness. 

This isn’t a competition –

however –

or a shame job for those who ruminate

through possibly more practical hobbies. 

This is a residency of sorts – 

not in France,

not in Spain,

not in places my past self

would have aligned with inspiration. 

And I mean no disrespect to France or Spain,

a trip there would be nice. 

But no.

This is Central Australia. 

Where winters produce frost bitten leaves

 come morning and

summers singe and sizzle. 

The dichotomy of them both overlapping with ease

can leave you spinning with confusion –

like a child in a toy store with sensory overload. 

Mparntwe property living is not readily accessible

in Instagram memes. 

But it is accessible through communal living –

through occupying a space not mine,

but shared in time,

amongst women,

at the baseline of ranges held high with traditional stories,

lingering shadows of women’s business –

simultaneously part of my day life, yet also

completely none of my business. 

My micro aggressions against colonisation are typical – 

I bought a t-shirt that crossed out Alice Springs in graffiti

and replaced it with Mparntwe. 

I have taught myself how to pronounce the name

by breaking it down

M-bun-twa –

I say, repeating a post-it note on my workspace. 

I try to drink locally bought tea leaves instead of coffee

and am inspired by journeys of baby animals,

nurtured on lands that are there’s

after being tragically separated from their birth mother. 

From someone embarrassingly too used to comfort,

these attempts at anti-colonial mirco aggression are all asking –  

Can I belong? 

What is a home? 

How much displacement is required for evolution? 

The answer is not here, right now. 

Instead, the light is turning.

The moment has arrived.

What’s the time again?

I open my curtain and survey lands that don’t belong to me,

but somehow have become part of me. 

After all –

There’re baby emus here.

And I can watch them grow.