Emotion & Expression
A space for intensity — whether it’s a teacup tempest or the quiet aftermath of a storm. These poems explore the highs, lows, and often-unspoken parts of the human experience.
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Holding Out a Hand
Hope arrived without fanfare, knowing full well we were entering the unknown. A poem about hospital corridors, long nights, kindness, and the quiet ways hope holds out a hand when we need it most.
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The Tools Around Me
The tools around us have changed, but creativity has always been human. A spoken-word reflection on AI, accessibility, expression, and the voices that still exist beneath the noise.
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No Apology
A poem about hospital waiting rooms, rediscovering your voice, and the quiet peace that comes after surviving the storm.
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Who Gives a Crap?
Author’s note: This one wasn’t planned.It just came out—somewhere between frustration with the world and trying to hold myself together within it.There’s a line in here that’s very real, and a moment I didn’t expect to share—but it felt important to leave it in.Sometimes we carry more than people realise.And sometimes, it only takes a voice from the past to unravel everything. Who gives a crap? Who gives a crap about some orange-tinted “Master Chief”playing war like it’s Halo?Everybody – or so it seems. Who gives a crap about the ongoing battle in Ukraine,still quietly burning in the background?Nobody – the algorithm moved on.Slava Ukraine. Who gives a crap about…
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Held
it’s just a thought.One small idea.Barely formed. Something I swallowbecause it’s easierthan explaining again. It sits behind the teeth.Under the tongue.Polite.Contained. I tell myself:“It’s almost time.”That the silence will stop.That waitingdoesn’t cost anything. The world lovesthis version of me.The quiet one.The reasonable one.The one who understandsthe process. So I wait. And while I waitthe voice doesn’t disappear –it presses. It becomes a weight in the chest.Tightness.A currentlooking for a way through. Because a voicecannot be pausedwithout consequence. What happens insteadis that it flows inward.Every unspoken wordadds pressure.Every delayed answerraises the waterline. Still,they don’t hear it. They say I’m calm.They say I’m coping.They saynothing looks wrong. They mistake restraintfor consent. But…
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40 Minutes
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Are you OK – Reprise
A quiet reflection on healing and release, where pain gives way to strength, and a hidden burden is finally lifted — leaving behind gratitude, resilience, and the courage to begin again.
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Are You OK?
“Are you OK?” asked the nurse, as machines hummed and lights glared. The patient, yellow-tinged, weary, lay silent while the world hurried around her — fluids, paracetamol, antibiotics, needles and scans, the mystery of illness written in her blood. And what of her husband? Inside: fear, exhaustion, despair. Outside: armour of calm, the warrior, the rock at her bedside. Is he OK? She is not ordinary — if such a word belongs to anyone. Her body a puzzle of conditions that weave together into fragility, into fight. Is she OK? Days blur into nights. Corridors become home, moved from ward to ward, sleep fractured by monitors’ beeps, by rubies of…
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Status
“What’s on your mind?”Shut up, Facebook.I’m not here to spill my soulinto another scrolling feed. I’m talking about status—not likes, not clicks,but standing in society.It’s not what you know,it’s who you know. Some chase it,some wear it like armour.Once they’ve got it,they don’t care what you think—because they’ve arrived.And we? We’re just the plebs. But what does it buy you?A pedestal, higher than the rest?Snobbery. Foolishness.Lavishness. Loneliness. Status isn’t all it seems.You can hold it in your handand still be hollow—always learning, never teaching. Status whispers:you’re too good for common people now.But you weren’t born into it—you clawed it from power’s grip. Now you stand apart,a black sheep in a…
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Are You There?
We’ve all been there—drifting into the abyss,slipping out of place,until reality claws us back,kicking, screaming, unwilling. And what a reality it is. A world that hums,a world that races,people trapped inside their own little bubbles.Obsessed with drama.Drowning in demands. Your voice bounces,echoes,lost in the hollow chamber of noise.And you ask yourself—“Does anyone even hear me?” Meanwhile—someone lies in a hospital bed.Alone. Mum.Dad.Nain.Taid.Aunty. Uncle.Brother. Sister. Too far to visit.Too busy to call.Are their families there for them?The answer? … No. And when a stranger collapses in front of you,are you there? When someone is dragged to the ground,their voice cut short—are you there? No. Most turn their faces away.Most step over…
