The thing is…
You broke us.
I came to you 
asking where I stood,
what I was
to you.
Asking about
the thing
— the big thing — 
you hadn’t told me.
The thing I thought
I mattered enough
to know.

The thing is… 
You dismissed me.
Then blamed me
for noticing.
For your silence.
For the secret
I was somehow wrong
to find hurtful.

The thing is…
I’ve tried to make
my brain believe
your apology.
Many times.
But it came too late.
Too much after
the words that burned
that dismissed
and blamed.
So my brain can’t.
Won’t.
Believe.

The thing is…
I believe anger tells.
Panic tells.
I believe defence does too.
The first version of a wound
is often the truest.
Even words written as a wound
come from somewhere.
From what is held inside.
From what is believed.
You write it and
I believe, too.
Your message can’t be unseen.
Unprocessed.
It can’t be unmade.
Unsent.

The thing is…
I still hurt.
I am
so 
fucking 
angry,
disappointed,
sad.
What a waste, 
I think.
Of a friendship.
Of time.
Of laughs and secrets told
over many years.
For what?

The thing is…
Sometimes, my memory flexes.
Tests and teases.
Mocking.
It presents me with
a reminder of us.
Glowing and bright.
From then.
Before.
I reach for
the version of you
that I could tell.
It’s automatic.
Then I remember
he’s gone.
Or worse —
he was never there.

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I hope you like it.

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My psychologist once told me mumbling is a great trait for a writer.

I told him: My fingers don’t mumble.

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This poem is an attempt to capture that experience, not as a narrative of recovery, but as it was lived: slow, repetitive, painful, and difficult to name. W…

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Nearly half of first-year university students worldwide have experienced suicidal thoughts, according to a massive new international study that maps the forces driving students from thoughts to plans to attempts. It suggests that prevention efforts must begin long before a student sets foot on campus.

The study, published in Psychiatry Research, found that childhood traumatic events such as emotional abuse, parental mental illness, and untreated depression were the strongest predictors of suicidal ideation, with transgender and non-heterosexual students at particularly high risk.

“Exposure to emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect – especially during childhood – is directly linked to suicidal ideation and the progression to planning and attempting suicide,” says the study’s lead author, Dr Philippe Mortier, from the Health Services Research Group at the Hospital del Mar Research Institute, Barcelona. “All these factors carry risk—every traumatic event, every mental disorder, without exception, increases the risk of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts.”

Researchers from the World Mental Health International College Student (WMH-ICS) initiative surveyed 72,288 first-year university students across 71 universities in 18 countries between 2017 and 2023. Students completed confidential, web-based questionnaires about their mental health, childhood experiences, and suicidal thoughts and behaviours.

Five childhood adversities were assessed: parental mental illness, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect. The prevalence of mental disorders among participants was assessed, including depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, PTSD, ADHD, and drug and alcohol use disorders. The researchers also examined students’ demographics, including age, gender identity, sexual orientation, and their parents' educational level.

They found a high prevalence of suicidal behaviour among students. Nearly half (47%) reported lifetime suicidal ideation, 26% had made a plan, and nearly one in 10 (9.6%) had attempted suicide. Most first experienced suicidal thoughts by age 15, with attempts peaking around age 16 to 18.

Childhood adversities were the strongest predictors of suicidal behaviour. Parental mental health had the highest risk; participants exposed to parental psychopathology were seven times more likely to report suicidal ideation. Students’ mental health also mattered. Major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder were the most powerful predictors of suicidal ideation. Panic disorder was strongly linked to moving from thoughts to actual attempts.

In terms of demographics, transgender students had 2.4 times higher risk of suicidal ideation, and 1.5 times higher risk of suicide attempts following ideation. Non-heterosexual students – those who identified as gay, lesbian, or “other” – were also at significantly higher risk. These risks remained elevated even after accounting for childhood trauma and mental health conditions, suggesting that minority stress, stigma, and discrimination may contribute additional risk.

The study does have limitations. The low response rate in some countries may bias prevalence estimates, despite statistical weighting. Self-report questionnaires can lead to under- or overreporting. The study can’t fully separate cause and effect; for example, whether childhood adversity caused later suicidal behaviour.

Despite its limitations, the study makes it clear that prevention can’t wait until students are already in crisis. Early intervention matters. Programs that support children growing up with abuse, neglect, or parental mental illness could dramatically cut suicide risk later in life.

On campus, universities can take a proactive role by screening for mental health conditions and a history of trauma, offering targeted support, and ensuring that services are culturally and LGBTQIA+-affirming. These risks stayed high even after accounting for childhood trauma and mental disorders, underscoring the need to address minority stress, stigma, and discrimination early.

“We need to invest in strategies and resources to build effective preventive interventions,” Mortier explains.

Mortier’s co-author, Dr Jordi Alonso, head of the Health Services Research Group at the Hospital del Mar Research Institute and Spanish coordinator of the WMH-ICS initiative, adds that, “effective prevention must take into account the combination of risk factors – such as sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, and the accumulation of childhood disorders – which can create a biosocial feedback loop that increases suicide risk.”

The message is unmistakable: the suicide crisis among students is not inevitable. With early intervention, inclusive care, and sustained investment in mental health, we have a chance to change the trajectory.

Source: Hospital del Mar Research Institute

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Australia is in the grip of a weight-loss drug boom. Medications like Ozempic and other GLP-1 receptor agonists have become household names, first prescribed for type 2 diabetes but now handed out in growing numbers to women chasing rapid weight loss. Amid the hype, though, a quieter story is unfolding. One that has serious consequences for women’s reproductive health.

New research published in the Medical Journal of Australia has found that prescriptions for these drugs have skyrocketed among women of childbearing age, most of them without diabetes. Yet fewer than one in four women were using effective contraception when they started GLP-1 treatment, and hundreds fell pregnant within months of beginning it. The findings raise questions about how these drugs are being prescribed and whether women are getting the full picture of the risks involved.

“We’re seeing widespread use of these medications among women of childbearing age, but very little evidence that contraception is being considered as part of routine care,” says the study’s corresponding author, Associate Professor Luke Grzeskowiak, from the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University. “These medications can be incredibly helpful, but they’re not risk-free, especially during pregnancy.”

The retrospective study obtained data on 1.6 million women aged 18 to 49 from MedicineInsight, a large, nationally representative general practice database that covers approximately 8% of GP clinics in Australia. To be included, the women must have visited their GP at least three times between 2011 and mid-2022 and received their first prescription of a GLP-1 drug. The researchers measured whether a highly effective contraceptive method, such as the pill, IUD, or subcutaneous implant, overlapped with the start of treatment. Pregnancies within six months after starting a GLP-1 drug were documented. The researchers adjusted rates for age and compared participants by diabetes status, demographics, and other factors.

They found that 18,010 women (1.1% of the group) were prescribed a GLP-1 drug for the first time. Prescriptions jumped from 13 per 1,000 women with type 2 diabetes in 2011 to 89 per 1,000 in 2022. In women without diabetes, it rose from zero in 2011 to 15 per 1,000 in 2022. By 2022, over 90% of all new prescriptions for GLP-1s were for women without diabetes.

Only 21% of women were using effective contraception when they started GLP-1 therapy. Coverage was even lower in women with diabetes (17%) compared to those without (23%). Out of 10,781 women followed for at least six months, 2.2% became pregnant. Pregnancy rates were higher in younger women and in those with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Women who used contraception at the time of GLP-1 prescription were 40% less likely to become pregnant within six months.

“Whilst the UK advises that women using GLP-1 receptor agonists should avoid pregnancy and use effective contraception, this advice is not being followed consistently in Australian clinical practice,” Grzeskowiak says. “We need to ensure that reproductive health is part of every conversation when these drugs are prescribed to any women of childbearing age.

“It is also vitally important that we have clearer practice recommendations and guidelines for those prescribing GLP-1s to women to ensure their safe and effective use. Our advice is to speak to your GP about the risks and benefits of GLP-1 medicines before taking them, and only take those prescribed by a healthcare professional.”

Like all research, this study had limitations. Drawing data from GP records covering about 8% of practices Australia-wide may not capture the full picture. It also measured prescriptions rather than whether the drugs were actually dispensed and taken. Even so, the findings highlight a real trend that deserves attention.

Further studies that evaluate the impact of GLP-1 medications on pregnant mums and their unborn children are needed.

Source: Flinders University

What do you think? Should reproductive health conversations be part of every weight-loss prescription?

Drop your thoughts in the comments.

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Your tender mouth is –non-stop kissing... 
–And that's it: I'm totally like a beggar. 
Who am I now? –The only one? –No, the thousandth! 
A conqueror? –No, the conquered!  

Marina Tsvetaeva, December 1918

Moscow, 2014

With his eyes closed and sharp chin jutted out slightly, he looked sculptural, like a Bernini come to life in a Moscow nightclub. My noisy laugh caused him to open his eyes, and he smiled with his whole, beautiful, angular face. Behind my ribs, a spark lit like smouldering sawdust on the verge of catching fire.

Moscow had been on my travel list for years. I was two days into a ten-day holiday, a treat to myself for finishing my law degree. I was due to start a new job when I returned to Melbourne. Being alone in a city where few people spoke English was disorienting, but my anonymity and distance from friends and family meant I could do things—explore things—I couldn’t explore at home. It’s one of the reasons that I was here.

With a head jerk, he gestured for me to come to him. When I didn’t move, he came to me, took my face in his hands and kissed me. Stubble pricked my chin; a new, not unpleasant sensation. My tongue touched his instinctively; I tasted beer. I felt him moan into my mouth when I pressed my hips into his, felt our cocks stiffen in unison. The smouldering spark flared; its glow ascended to my brain and travelled down, down my spine, expanding to fill my gut.

“My name Dmitri.” His hot breath on my neck raised goosebumps. “You call me Dima.”

Dima led me to the outside smoking area. He told me he was twenty-three (the same age as me) and had moved to Moscow from Volgograd to study design. When I told him how much I enjoyed being in the city, he sighed and described how things had changed in the year since Putin’s anti-gay law came into effect. Now, gay clubs like this one, his favourite, he said, were scarce; violent police and even more violent mobs were not. The mobs had two favoured methods for hunting pediki. One was roving street gangs; the other was using Grindr to lure them with fake offers of sex. Both methods ended in severe, sometimes fatal beatings that, so far, Dima had avoided. Some of his friends hadn’t.

“Vse normal’no,” Dima said when he saw my horrified expression. Frowning, he put his warm hand on mine. “Everything okay. Only it mean don’t be gay in public.” Then he smiled. “In private, we can do it.”

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Consider this your bite-sized palate cleanser — something quick, weird, and (hopefully) snort-worthy. Meet Sharon. She files her nails while talk…

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This is one of the hardest pieces I’ve ever written—and one of the truest. It’s about adoption, addiction, and the empty spaces inside us that don’t always get filled, even after we think we’ve found what we were looking for.

To maintain anonymity, names have been reduced to initials. I’m sharing this with subscribers because I trust you to treat it gently.

I don’t remember when Mum and Dad told me I was adopted; I just remember always knowing. I was seven when I came to understand what it meant. Before then, I’d spoken of my adoption with pride. Being told by extended family and the occasional schoolteacher that I was special or lucky to have been ‘chosen’ made me feel like I belonged to an exclusive group that included my younger sister, two cousins, and a school friend. But after seven, a creeping emptiness started to spread inside me. At its root was a questioning centred around family, identity, and belonging and an assumption that I was unloved and unwanted. Other than disclosing the inescapable, unchangeable fact of my adoption when required, I never gave a voice to the biting questions in my head, which only my birth mother could answer. I mentally swatted them away until adulthood, when they became too loud to ignore.

After spending a few years taking a mental run-up, I finally committed. Cautiously optimistic, on March the third, 1999, three weeks before my twenty-seventh birthday, I drove to Anglicare Victoria’s Yarraville office. The law required me to attend an interview with an approved counsellor – in my case, a woman named Mia – before being provided with my adoption information. I was born in 1972 when adoption was still considered the cure for ‘the problem’ of unmarried motherhood. The practice of closed adoption had, since the 1920s, reflected a perceived need for secrecy around that particular social ill and the idea that a clean break between birth mother and child benefited both. Victoria’s first Adoption of Children Act, which came into effect in 1929, mandated the erasure of a child’s identity by sealing their original birth certificate, a fresh certificate creating a new identity “as though the adopted child was a child born to the adopter in lawful wedlock”. From the ’40s, it was deemed desirable for an unwed mother to relinquish her baby straight after birth. The thinking was that it was necessary to transplant ex-nuptial babies onto ‘good’ (married) mothers as soon as possible to calm the punitive, patronising social anxiety of the day. Legislative change in the 1960s added another layer of clandestineness by ensuring that neither birth nor adoptive parents knew the other party’s name. It remained that way until 1984, when Victoria lifted the thick blanket of secrecy covering adoption.

Mia was perfunctory but kind. She took me to a small grey room and sat me at a small grey table. Unsure whether to smile or look serious, I opted for an uncomfortable combination as, under the table, I ran my sweaty palms up and down my jeaned thighs. After about half an hour, I left clutching a large white envelope. At home, I convinced my trembling fingers to rip open the gluey seal and spread the photocopied pages across my dining table.

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It’s a story about schoolyard cruelty, queer survival, and the power of finally saying what needed to be said—thirty-five years later. A story of remembering, reckoning, and dancing alone to your own damn beat.

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It’s about the sanctuary of night, the relief it can bring, and the way it wraps around pain like a balm. The sestina is a challenging poetic form, yes, but also a profoundly personal one. This is …

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It’s fiction, but it isn’t.

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Here’s a flash fiction piece about impatience, ageing, and the quiet violence that lives in everyday moments.

Watching her, my eyes narrowed, then rolled upward to the grey ceiling. I stifled a groan. She’d been struggling with the lid for less than a minute, but I could see the exertion in her blotchy cheeks and her tiny, effortful grunts. I noticed that my hands had been unconsciously mimicking hers, clenching and unclenching. I slid them into my pockets to make them stop, but when they did, my jaw tightened in spasms. I heard a dull squeak, the grinding scrape of teeth on teeth.

I exhaled too loudly.

She stopped. Her hands still gripped the jar, but she was no longer struggling to open it. Breathless, she looked at me with watery eyes framed by flaccid eyelids and magnified by comically thick lenses. There was a time when those dark brown eyes had demanded a respectful fear from my sister and me. When their wordless commands—stop doing that, don’t touch that, get over here now—were dutifully obeyed.

“I’ll do it.”

I jerked the jar from her hands, swollen with fluid and crumbling bone. Her fingers, bent at unnatural angles, hung in the air, trembling and useless. The skirmish with the lid had left battle scars; patterned red bands ran across her palms and the soft underside of her walnut-sized knuckles.

“I almost had it,” she wheezed, her mouth forming a tight O.

“Right,” I said, disdain sneaking into my voice despite my best efforts. “You sure you want jam, Mum?”

She lowered her head. A silent yes.

“Okay.” Contempt this time. Grabbing the lid tightly, I twisted. The lid cooperated, and I heard a loud pop on the first turn. She opened her mouth, and I thought she was going to say ‘I loosened it for you,’ like she’d done a hundred times when we were kids.

I placed the jar on the kitchen bench, and she grabbed at it with both hands.

“I have to go,” I said, looking at my watch. “I’m late now.”

As I walked towards the front door, I heard the scrape of the butter knife against cold, hard toast.

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She arrived in a hot, sticky Bendigo day and stayed for sixteen years. Through scraped knees, secret hurts, and childhood storms, she was my protector, my shadow, my first best friend.

🐾

She arrived unexpectedly on a hot Bendigo afternoon.

“Come outside for a sec,” Dad said, with a sly smirk and a raised eyebrow, “I have to show you something.”

Show me something? My six-year-old mind leapt to one conclusion: presents. But it was only February; I wouldn’t turn seven for another forty-three days. Nanna was sweating over a pot of overcooked green beans. I looked at her for a clue, but she just shrugged and went back to stirring.

I peeled my sticky legs off the orange vinyl kitchen chair and followed Dad to the front door of my grandparents’ house. My little sister, who’d watched the two of us file through the lounge room, joined us, clutching a naked Barbie in one hand. Stepping outside the tiny, mint-green weatherboard miner’s cottage, the light was blinding. My exposed calves prickled from the heat that shimmered from the concrete front porch. Mum was waiting on the nature strip by the Commodore, hugging something that fit neatly in her crossed arms. Whatever it is, it’s only small, I thought.

“Wait here,” Dad directed, then he walked to Mum, took the bundle in his massive hand, and beckoned me over. I crossed the grass of the front yard, head bobbing and swivelling, trying to see what the little ‘something’ was.

“It’s not your birthday yet, but you’ve been asking for a while, so… here she is,” Dad said with a grin. “Hold out your hands.”

I obeyed, forming the cradling pose I’d seen aunties and older cousins make when a new baby was being passed around. Dad gently placed the wriggling bundle into my arms, and I pulled it to my bare chest. She was a perfect arrangement of soft, fluffy, red-brown fur, dangly ears, and paws that were too big for her long body. With a soft whine, she nuzzled me, nestling her warmth against mine.

The world contracted.

My sister, who’d been watching from the shade of a giant crepe myrtle, wandered over. After inspecting the puppy, she snorted with a sullen disinterest and ambled away, twirling her Barbie by its blonde hair.

I lowered my mouth to the animal’s velvety ear.

“Hi. Your name’s Susie.”

She answered with a hot lick to the tip of my nose.

That first night, Nanna made her feelings known.

“It’s not sleeping inside,” she said.

Pop, puffing on his smelly pipe, nodded his agreement.

I cried as Susie, whimpering and confused, was carried down to the old horse stable in the backyard. I hated that place. It was dark and musty, filled with spiders and piled high with prickly hay bales.

I heard her high-pitched cries from my makeshift bed on the lounge room floor. They sounded like they were coming from my own chest. I couldn’t sleep. So, when I heard Dad’s soft snores coming from the fold-out couch at the other end of the room, I got up and, braving the bindii-laden grass, strode barefoot across the backyard to liberate her. We both slept then, curled up together. When creaking floorboards signified that Nanna was up for her morning wee, I slipped Susie back outside and returned to bed.

🐾

Back at home in Geelong, we became inseparable. Susie was strictly an outside dog, but I brought her in some weekend mornings after I’d woken, trying to get her to sleep in my bed. She’d humour me for about five minutes, then leap off the bed with a huff, making it clear she preferred dirt, grass, and open skies.

She was fiercely protective. She once bit my swimming coach after he smacked his grandson in her sight. After that, I learned something important: if I ran out the back door when I was in trouble and heard the jingle of Dad’s belt coming off, Susie would stand in front of me, growling low and steady. My parents eventually caught on. Mum would stand guard at the back door, blocking my exit, while I tried to outrun Dad.

Susie was my confidante. I told her everything—things I didn’t, or couldn’t, tell anyone else. She held all my secret hates, my secret loves, and all my hard, uncomfortable truths. She always knew when I was upset and would soothe me by staring at me with her wide brown eyes, and laying her head in my lap. She didn’t need to speak. Ears that listened and her warm, steady presence were enough.

I took care of her, too. When she had her first seizure, I didn’t know what was happening. Her back arched unnaturally, her neck stiffened, and she shook violently. I panicked. I thought she might die. I sat beside her, sobbing and stroking her fur until it stopped. Then I warmed some milk in the microwave, cradled her head in my lap, and whispered that everything would be okay. I didn’t understand epilepsy then, but I understood fear. And I knew that she needed me to stay with her.

We grew up together. Through Susie, I learned about love and the joy of caring for another creature. For sixteen years, she was my constant. My refuge. My brave little protector. She was my first best friend.

One Saturday morning, I bounced outside and called her.

“Susie! Susie—where are you, girl?”

Nothing. No pattering feet, no little acknowledging bark.

I called again, louder. Listened. Waited. Still nothing.

Something in me just knew.

I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled into the cool, dark space under the house. I don’t remember the dust or the cobwebs or even the cramped space. I only remember the shape of her—a still mound of red-brown fluff, curled into the back corner like she’d chosen it. Like she knew it was time. She’d taken herself away. The way animals do, sometimes, with dignity that breaks your heart.

I didn’t scream.

I howled.

Justin, my next-door neighbour, told me years later that he heard the horrible sound and knew what it meant. I couldn’t bear to grab her and bring her out. Mum had to ask Peter, the son of the woman across the road, to do it for me. I ran to my bedroom and sobbed until I couldn’t physically do it anymore.

We buried her in the backyard. I made a cross out of two offcuts of wood from Dad’s shed and wrote her name on it with black Texta, as neatly as I could.

Susie was my first best friend. My secret-keeper. My protector. Sixteen years of love, packed into a long, low body with warm eyes that understood everything. She taught me so much, and I like to think that I taught her something, too. And I’m sure she still walks with me in the soft, unspoken spaces of my life.

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This piece is about two people—father and son—who finally see each other before one of them is gone forever.

It’s about timing, tenderness,…

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It captures the moment I found joy, found freedom … and might even have found myself. It’s about dancing, kissing, exhaling, and coming home.

I escaped the small town and ran to the big city; 
while I’m unseen by most, I am seen by my kind.
I left behind stifling smallness and pity,
the repugnance of difference that small towns prescribe.

There, in the small town, was a life full of fear,
of scorn and of violent words that cut deeply.
Suffocation’s no more, in my sanctuary here— 
my heart’s begun lightening, my mood rising steeply.

In the queer clubs, I found those who best understood me,
the ones who were on a path very like mine.
And the pleasure I felt just from dancing so freely
among my new friends: exultation divine.

Kissing a boy for the first time in darkness
in a club corner, away from the crowd,
sparked in me joy, release, catharsis
that up until that time had not been allowed.

Afterwards—daylight—my ears are still ringing,
I remember the night as through back streets I roam.
I grasp tightly that joy I’ve discovered and, smiling,
I say to myself: You’ve found it; you’re home.

Thank you so much for reading!

Please be sure to watch for the final poem in the sequence, which will go live in the next few days.

And, if you haven’t already, check out the last poem, ‘18 / Truth’ here:

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Some of you already know I’ve launched my own newsletter, Paul McClure | Story & Truth, via Substack. It’s a place where I share poetry, short fiction, memoir, creative nonfiction, and (soon) journalistic work focused on social justice and making LGBTQIA+ voices heard.

If you’re already a subscriber—thank you. Truly.
If you’re a paid subscriber—thank you with an extra, heartfelt sparkle emoji. ✨

Subscribing is free or paid—both are welcome, and both are appreciated. But if you’re enjoying my work and are in a position to support it financially, upgrading to a paid subscription is a great way to help me keep going.

What does a paid subscription get you?

• Full access to my archive of work (which is slowly growing to become a kind of queer time capsule).

• Posts before they go behind a paywall.

• The warm glow of knowing you’re keeping this space alive.

• And one day, who knows? Bonus content? A podcast? A random dog photo drop?

The truth is, the media landscape is a bit of a bin fire right now. Spaces like Substack are becoming sanctuaries for independent writing—places where nuance, experimentation, and deeply personal work can thrive outside of algorithms and ad revenue.

Paying for a subscription here isn’t just about content—it’s a kind of quiet, radical patronage. It says, “I believe in stories that matter. I believe in writing that dares to be honest.”

And if you’re thinking, “Well, I can’t even buy two coffees a month without gasping at the price”—that’s fair. Me too. And I appreciate that many of us suffer from ‘subscription exhaustion.’ But just know that if you can support my work financially, it means the world.

If you can’t? Share the posts you love. Tell a friend about them. Reply with a comment. That kind of support counts, too. I love hearing from readers who’ve connected personally with something I’ve written; it makes it all worthwhile.

Thanks for being here—in any form. I'm learning, I'm growing, and I’m deeply grateful you're along for the ride.

With love,
Paul 💙

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