I’m so scared.

sometimes… but mostly not consciously,

deep inside

a little girl sits, terrified.

That I can see her again is evidence I am healing,

I have this other part of me here too, on standby,

waiting, watching, to protect her and I

there was a time I remember conceiting so harshly to evil

I had little to no reason to be fearful…

I could see no light to protect

no scared little girl to guard

she was torn, screaming from my arms.

I remember breaking so hard that I stared deep into the dark

unafraid

uncaring of what it had for me

or how far

it would take me before I was lost forever.

I’m afraid now

of the dark

without at least a spark

of light

And of losing… my one and only life

I feel it in my body

the pain, sadness and heat

as I’m misunderstood once more

just being me

the moment builds so quickly, like its already been decided

i don’t know how I mess up so much

is this how quiet people become quiet?

I feel like I misread everything

but one on one we gel

if you knew how much this hurt me

maybe you’d be able to tell

that when you assume the worst of me

I feel it in my heart

I mean what I say and say what I mean

there is no other secret part

its like the more I am myself,

people read between their own lines

but I want to speak free, not in code anymore

and if you don’t like me when I do

well, I guess that’s fine.

I wake up in pain

grief anew

words of warning and assurance

don’t match the changes in you

I have honoured my promise

to pour through the hard

but I won’t pour till I’m empty

or an official discard

I can see the shift, the way you no longer pursue

my ears no longer

where you whisper everything to

in the quiet freedom that grants us our time

you are frivolous and uncaring

indulging in energies,

expecting blind loyalty from mine

Writing has saved my active mind. What do I mean by this? Well, I guess that writing feels like home for all the thoughts my mind has but lacks the storage space for, that I am also too tired to speak aloud. Too tired, too discouraged, too frustrated, too whatever. I have a VERY active mind and this means I can talk a lot. I have come a long way with my feelings about how much I talk, moved past a lot of the shame that I had accumulated from years of getting in trouble at school, at home, being ridiculed or judged, being called a “know it all”. I have moved past a lot of the “too much” narrative written by people who didn’t or couldn’t appreciate me for all that I am.

At some point I started to realise that, yes, I do love a yap, but honestly, I enjoy silence. I need silence. However, with such an overactive mind - lacking the space to process such activity, paired with feeling chronically misunderstood and severely under stimulated, well, that can become problematic if not utterly dangerous. Without the level of personal reflection only really possible with silent, solo processing time, I would never have begun to realise just how long I spent, slowly limiting myself, my own capacity for deep thought, because I had measured the value of what I had to say by the responses of people who never had the capacity to keep up with me.

Enter, writing. Journalling. Emailing myself. Texting myself when I knew they just wouldn’t even get what I was trying to say, but I needed to get it out. Eventually, deeply emotional and raw poetry and suddenly, a lot of it. The more I wrote, the more I wanted to write. The more I wrote, the better the conversations I had were.

Writing saved my active mind, when it felt like giving up. When it had given up. When I started, admittedly my stuff was not that good. It still isn’t. I’m learning. But I feel my brain coming alive and writing feels like a much more sustainable externalisation of my experience. So, I’m not stopping, and I won’t shut up.

Audio:

Something a little different but very meaningful. I am not very experienced, particularly with this style of writing but I enjoyed creating this and hope you enjoy reading it.

I lay in the warm sun shadow lining the end of the lounge. The rays have been so nice today. I rest in the quiet. It helps me cope when mum isn’t here. It was so peaceful. Well, aside from that loud ringing. I hid under the couch till it stopped. Normally Mum does something to silence it. She gets excited when that ringing happens but I HATE it. It is so loud.

I do like when Mum is excited. She deserves to feel good. She has been sad too many times. I miss her so much. She is out today. She had packed a bag to take. It had a banana and her big water bottle. But she left it on the bench, leaving only with those things on her head and ears that play music, and the little box that voices come out of. I hope she comes back. I crawl up with the old shirt she gave me to lay with. It smells just like her. I will guard this with my life.

OH MY GOSH. I know that smell, my tail starts knocking on the floor all on its own. Fresh. Cut. Grass. Bags of Yummy Things. That cream she puts on her leg that she never lets me lick off - she says it will make me sick.

Mum! I know it’s her.

She is just outside. I run to the door to greet her.

The door handle lowers and I hear her keys jingle. Mum squeezes her way in. The door doesn’t open all the way because of the piling cardboard boxes behind it. Those are fun but Mum stops me from playing with them. She says I will make a mess. Oh Mum, I’ve missed you. I give her lots of love. Jumping up on my hind legs to let her know how great it is that she is home. I take in all the smells. The grass on her shoes, the carrots in the grocery bag, something that smells crunchy and warm and Not For Doggies as mum would say. Ew! I detect the stench of that poodle from down the street. Whatever, I am her favourite. Mum loves me. I love mum. It has been so long. I didn’t know if she would return.

Mum drops a couple of bags that have lots of other things with lots of different smells. I try to explore but Mum stops me and plonks herself down on the ground to sit with me. I see it, her face is very wet. Oh no. I can smell the salt. I know I must help kiss away the sadness. I gently go to lick the tears from her face but she moves me. She holds me instead. Her heartbeat is fast. Thump, thump, thump. Oh mumma. I am sad. She speaks to me softly, but this is different, she sounds muted not just gentle.

Her arms are warm but shakey. The tears fall onto her skin and I lick them up, because that’s what I do when Mum cries. I don’t know what else to do when Mum cries. The salty smell makes something in my chest squeeze tight. It smells like it has too many times before. I do not like it.

I remember scary times. A door between us. I remember scratching at it, whining, pushing my nose into the crack. I could hear her voice, she sounded scared. The air smelled like something very wrong. I didn’t know what was happening. I just knew I needed to be on the other side of that door with my mum, but I couldn’t. I hated that door. I hated anything that kept me from her when she was hurting.

Then later, when we were safe and the house smelled like just us again, I got sick. I had to spend time in hospital, everyone seemed very scared and mum came home from her holiday to be with me till she could take me home. She cried then too, a lot. She wasn’t behind a door. She was right there, holding me close. Then learning how to poke me with the needle twice a day. Her hands shook, but she did it anyway. Sometimes I am scared of the needle, sometimes I don’t even realise she is doing it. I might have accidentally bitten her at times, but I ALWAYS give her love after. She told me she needed me to stay. I didn’t understand the words, but I understood her voice. I understood her smell. I understood love.

She saved me. I save her. That’s how we are.

Now she’s here on the rug with me. No doors, no one else with any bad smells. I feel her heart and warm breath begin to slow down. I curl into her and press my wet nose into her arm, the thumping is getting slower now. She starts to dose off, she looks so tired. Don’t worry, Mum. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.

This was written many months ago and only slightly edited for upload because I wanted to keep it as raw as possible. This poem explores the quiet, relentless grief of living in a body that no longer behaves the way it once did. It contrasts the pride once found in physical strength with the exhaustion of chronic pain, the loss of imagined futures, and the constant calculation required just to get through daily life. Through raw honesty and frustration, it is a confrontation with the tension between wanting connection and needing protection, between knowledge and powerlessness, between resilience and depletion.

Despite the heaviness, the poem ultimately turns toward defiance and hope. It recognises that wanting more is hopeful and that survival itself is an act of resistance. The closing message is one of stubborn self-preservation.

Do you know what it’s like,
to consider your every movement? 
To know that one wrong too fast or too long
could you have bedridden for a week?

To grieve the soreness you once earned
a sign of success
a challenge overcome, from limits pushed
feeling yourself grow strong through the pain
satisfied, accomplished
knowing you were working towards something impressive

Do you know what it’s like, 
to mourn the life you wanted for yourself 
the years lost to anguish 
your health -
because many days it’s painful to simply exist
and daily tasks feel harder than lifting weights ever did  

I hope you don't know what it’s like
to mentally plan for every outing 
and debilitation in the days that follow.
To have electricity coursing through you
short circuited by sorrow

To possess so much knowledge 
but
what feels like none of the fucking power 
to run so hard from yourself
you hear your heart cower 

To battle with the desire to connect 
and the requirement for safety
to feel the pressure to predict, 
knowing that you can’t -
because the next person you get wrong
will take the last bit of health you have

This all sounds exhausting,
because it is.
Depressing,
because it is.
But my dopamine deficiency,
clearly has a rivalry with resilience
because how the fuck am I still here?

I allow myself to complain 
and remind myself that complaining
is also a sign of hope -
because I'm here, I want more for myself 
I am bothered by my unhappiness,
by what my life is lacking 

There is so much life left 
and the only way I can lose 
Is if I give up completely 
stop searching for joy, for energy
for light, for laughter
for love 

So I will do it scared
do it tired 
rest as needed 
I won't bounce back, I will step forward 
crawl forward on the days I can't stand up 
And no matter what I need to do 
Or how much help I need along the way
I won’t ever be the reason I lose myself completely.

This morning was another one of those rare hopeful days living with ADHD. You convince yourself to try and prep for your day, not quite knowing what your “too much” is or when you will randomly forget that time exists. In an attempt to make life easier for myself later in the day, when I often find myself reaching for some random combination of frozen items to throw in the air fryer, I thought I would boil some potatoes to make a salad.

Yesterday, I made a very TikTok-vegan-girly salad jar with canned lentils, corn, peas, kale, baby spinach and cucumber. I even made a dressing with these delicious semi-dried tomatoes - well the ones left over from my late night fridge-to-mouth snack sesh. I also blended in some Dijon mustard, a little apple cider vinegar and some of the baby spinach because that stuff just takes up so much space. Oh, and this beautiful olive oil my ex-girlfriend got me from Lebanon - I have to ration that now since we are now “no contact” and I haven’t organised another plug. You can see how I forgot about the fucking potatoes.

Anyway, I chopped up my spuds, small enough to cook in a reasonable amount of time - because I had to capitalise on the fleeting energy I had before work started at 11am. I added more than enough water and ignited the flame. You aren’t going crazy, those are definitely all the steps to boiling potatoes, aside from waiting part.

Here’s where I fucked up. I am not sure why I thought this was the one time I would not only do stretches and yoga, but play this relaxing meditation playlist and really have a slow morning. The amazing thing is, it actually slowed things down, I allowed myself to push my worries aside and just relax on my balcony after my stretches, laying with my eyes closed, the world floating by.

Suddenly, I realised something (hint: not the potatoes). I was busting to go for a wee. On my way to the bathroom, I saw it. The horror, the tragedy. I had so much hope for them, my precious potatoes. The potatoes I had expected to bubble away till tender, had instead faced a sort of slow, torturous demise. Their water bath more shallow with each minute passed, till eventually they were abandoned entirely on dry heat. Desperate, I thought I would see just how many had burnt. Maybe I got there just in time, right as the water evaporated. Maybe I could save the last of them. Devastatingly, there were no survivors. As I inspected the crime scene, I saw the innocent saucepan that held them, was now caked with carbon - another casualty of my scattered mind.

I accepted defeat and began to mourn the potato salad I never got to eat. I am left only with their half cremated remains and this piece of writing I did instead of washing the saucepan I will probably have to throw out. For fuck sakes.

Polish and scrub 


I know I messed up


Is anyone else hot? 


Shit! They said dab, don’t rub! 


We can’t erase 


B r e a t h e, girl 


It’s all over your face 


The world is not ending,


well, not because of this 


misunderstanding.

I wrote this short piece in response to feeling myself mentally detach from someone who was a huge part of my life. I loved them dearly. We had gone through so much together but I had become emotionally hyperindependent again due to unmet needs. A trauma response I had worked hard to combat in order to accept their love, which initially felt beautifully healing. Unfortunately, due to many factors in and out of their control, I survived too much alone, in their company. When they finally started to realise, that all the issues we had were affecting me, badly, it was too late for them to learn me. At first I tried to pretend it was just a symptom, but the truth is, the feelings of emotional safety and trust, were long gone.

An outcome once certain, now unstable
I slowly stepped out of my body
A silent observer of my own relationship
Hopeful or hopeless, I could never settle
I stepped away from a love that had turned from healing to hurting 
and threw myself into the unknown