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All the hurt, heartache, horror in the world,and I can’t stop thinking about the little mousemy cat brought in last night.Attempting to be a saviour, I trapped itunder a glass. It scrabbled desperately at the sides,as if its life was there, just out of reach.But its back legs trailed behind, bentand useless, tethering it to a certain death.The sugar-coated shine dissolving from its eyes —I couldn’t leave it to suffer. Panicked, all I could think of was the hammer, just one blow —but my kindness crumbledin the face of this small savagery.I carried it outside. Put it safely away from the cat’s maiming, to die slowly, alone in the rainy dark.What I’m trying to say is being kind takes bravery.What I’m trying to say is my timidity was brutal.What I’m trying to say is it’s easy to believe you’d do the right thinguntil you have to bloodyyour own hands. I was really pleased to be featured in the first edition of AEOS Magazine, an ace looking print-only independent journal from Scotland. there are only a few copies left now – get one here!

Once I’d arrived, I could not leave alone. My door was opened every 15 minutes to check this wounded creature hadn’t found a bloody means of escape. The two of you came with your unwilling dad, who leaned away from loving me as if I were something rotten. I was made of paper, hiding the torn edgeswith a storybook façade. You tumbled together, brightly in the serene, sunny garden as if everything were normal. My arms were made just to hold you. When we returned to the family visiting hall, I showed you some of the yoga I’d learnt:happy baby pose. The three of us on our backs, bent legs skyward, rocking, laughing – more laughter than that austere room had ever known. It looked on, nonplussed, smelling faintly of Mr Sheen and boiled vegetables. I’d been brought the only treasure in the world worth anything to me, golden, brim-fullof an untarnished future. Even a place like this was alive with you. And you couldn’t stay. I couldn’t leave. First Published in Anti Heroin Chic Issue 36

I see you in the museum, at midnight — dancing with the dead things,caressing dust from faded furand feathers,reminding themof how it felt to live.You understand how it isto emerge, creaking and cautioushaving been pinned in place,inflamed and aching,bent into the shapethat illness will allow.The bright glare, muffled roarof life passing beyond glass wallsas you lay, stifled in stillness, reduced to merely watchingwith bright button eyes.So dance with your dead menagerie,let brittle birds take refuge in your hair.Creatures crowd lovingly around you, reanimated animals, thankfulfor the moments they can holdsomething like life again. My poem Snow White has been featured in the fantastic DUST POETRY MAGAZINE. Dust is a British poetry journal featuring work from global artists that I admire and I am so happy to appear amongst them. Snow White is very dear to me as it is inspired by a good friend and explores the concept of chronic illness which I also experience personally.

To My Child | February 2024 ~ First Published by Ink Sweat & Tears. I am really happy that this little poem i wrote for my eldest child has been published in Ink Sweat & Tears’ LGBT Feature. link below… ========================Welcome to Day One of our feature! Featuring Godelieve de Bree, Casey Garfield, and Anna Maughan Link below for the full poems 🙂 Before you were even born, you’d been assigned a binary — a little blue boy — but you’re beyond those categories. I loved you exactly as you were, I love you exactly as you are, I will love whoever you will be.

You used to sleep on me, soothed by being held, by the sounds of my body, by the rhythm of my breath. I remember your soft warmth, surrendered weight, total trust. Fists uncurling on my chest, fingers tangled in my hair. Such tender, ferocious, aching love — pulsing through me, it felt like every heartbeat I would ever have. Cell by cell, you became who you are. Now tall as me, you sleep late, hold your own dreams. But that love still burns, an unwavering fire — warmth if you are sleepless, light if you are lost.

Your world breaks, then steadies then breaks again, but deeper way below the foundations built together years ago, those rooms mapped out in simple faith and filled with all your days: love and friendship, fights and passion, laughter, sorrow, silence. When your world breaks far deeper than you knew it could, you will feel that you can’t go on but you will go on. It will feel so much more than you can bear but you will bear it you’ve shoulders broad enough. You will feel that you are lost forever, fallen through the cracks, but a part of you is always found in those blue eyes you made: they will tell you every day why your love lives and just how much your pain is worth.

Dizzy with the turning of the world, as the sun comes blazing over the horizon. Mist still in the dips of the field, crows perch on black-clad bales or paint calligraphic marks across the sky. Snail trail, a long silver ellipsis across paving slabs, bumblebees already in the poppies. A chorus of cuckoos, blackbirds, woodpigeons, all singing to the sun, seeing it for the first time. the world turns a little more and the sky is washed with gold— everything is new.

Rat-like in the sterile space, you want to run, to go under, through, away, claws skittering on spotless, slippery floors, scent of hospital on your fur, disinfectant and despair. You will escape this maze they trapped you in, despite locked doors, windows that barely open — you’ll chew and chew, finally slip through to return somewhere dark and earthy, full of warmth and life, animal and free.

First I’m dismantled danger boxed away: razors, mouthwash dental floss — they can’t fix you if you keep trying to break. Gates shut the world out and me in, guarded from myself — I may earn a key when they trust me not to run. This room was built to keep life alive (if not exactly living) nothing here will bear my weight but nor can I — nor can I.

fearless nights before we were mortal we were the city lights we were neon lit up while the tower-blocks slept their grey sleep dreaming grey dreams. we blazed barefoot and wasted climbing up to dance on the scaffolding at the seventh floor passing round the bottle like falling wouldn’t hurt.