PHOTO: MILLIE MURFIT

Aussie squint

Jess Nyanda Moyle

Shared my view through my rose-tinted prescriptions with you

oh woooow, cool

then off again

onto the sand

into the water
Glint of North Freo

Eyes screwed shut, still seeing

Both our mouths slightly open

Not talking and then
The ol’ Aussie squint
You called it

Australianisms usually make me queasy

but this one made me laugh
I like it when the water touches my belly button

I know it’s hiding my pubic hair that pokes out of my size ten bather bottoms

I wonder if you were looking at my body
Two pale bellies

mine out, not as brown as it used to be

Yours in a one-piece

Some fit, tanned bodies on the shore and you say
He’s got a big dick
We both look

We throw seaweed at each other for a bit
Kind of want chippies


At North Freo Grill’d you drill me
Do you work

Nah I don’t

Then how do you live?

I um

You on Centrelink?

Yeah
I look at my aioli

You stop drilling me

I do the ol’ Aussie squint at the bitumen to stop getting teary

You a nineteen-year-old

with me an oldie you called me

who doesn’t work

who doesn’t know how to live

25.

yeah nah

true

suppose I am

suppose I don’t

Jess Nyanda Moyle is a musician, theatre maker, and an emerging writer based in Perth/Boorloo. A Theatre Arts graduate from Curtin University who spends most of their time performing and recording under their solo project Jocelyn’s Baby or sporadically playing synth for Australiana indie darlings Yawn Vibes. Jess recently finished the Writing Change, Writing Inclusion program for Centre for Stories and has written short plays for ATYP’s 2019 Fresh Ink program and WAYTCo’s 24Hour Play Generator. Their contributions to Portside Review will be their first published work.

Favourite sea creature
I'm quite into squids and octopuses, any sort of cephalopod really. They're super mysterious; just these gloopy, amorphous creatures that eat themselves sometimes. Almost like aliens living here on Earth. And a while back I did a theatre show called Cephalopod. I shouted a long list of squid facts into a microphone, and sang a Tagalog version of You're the Voice. Also talked about my mum and I migrating from the Philippines, and myself growing up queer in Perth. (Again, feeling like an alien on Earth, woohoo!!) It was a weird, fun, gay old time.