I’m a burning rage,
left on the heat too long,
a rattling hymn,
a broken song,
fifty years of swallowed flame
hissing underneath my name.
The valve is screaming.
Metal shakes.
Every nerve inside me aches.
I smile politely, perform on cue,
while something violent pushes through.
I keep down the lid with all my might,
by burning skin in dead of night,
with every cruelty that’s been done,
turned inward like a loaded gun.
Because if I let one drop release,
the roar will shatter every peace.
I’d howl like engines split apart,
rip every silence from my heart.
I do not want to wound a soul,
absorbing pain just is my role.
I’ve learned to lock each rage-filled crybehind my teeth, behind my eyes.
But fury ferments in the dark.
heat upon heat, a living spark.
The pressure *** begins to groan,
pain to contain, fear to postpone.
“Leave me alone”
no, stay nearby.
I fear the dark inside my mind.
I fear the things I cannot name
when no one stands between the flame.
Because alone, I will collapse,
split wide open at the cracks,
I’ll pound the walls with both my fists
‘til bones and grief can coexist.
I want to scream until I’m raw,
until my lungs forget their law,
until the child I used to be
stops bracing for catastrophe.
I want to cry it from my blood,
this toxic, ancient, choking flood,
to purge the poison, scorch the shame,
and not emerge at all the same.
The lid still trembles.
Cracked.
Thin.
And every day it takes more pain
just to keep it sealed again.
One day I fear I’ll lose my grip,
the valve will shriek, the hinges split -
and all the grief I never spoke
will turn this body into smoke.
6d ago
May 28, 2026 at 7:48 AM UTC
You’ve guided and you’ve helped me to step safely through my pain,
sat with the crippling ache in me
through sorrow, fear, and shame.
You never made me feel like there were things I still should hide,
held my suffering with steady hands
and stayed there by my side.
You made a space where I could speak
the thoughts I feared the most,
the times I felt like nothing but
a worthless, empty ghost.
And even when I said aloud “I do not want to stay,”
you never judged or blamed me,
you never turned away.
You listened like my brokenness
deserved compassion too,
as though each feeling I confessed
made perfect sense to you.
You always asked what I might need,
so softly, every time,
until I felt I might deserve
some gentleness and light.
Now you leave for something new -
small fingers curled in sleep,
a life that soon will know your voice,
your warmth, your love so deep.
You’ll be the kindest mum alive,
of this I’m fully sure,
the sort who makes a child feel safe,protected and secure.
Your baby will be held by love
so constant, calm, and true,
because the care you gave to me
is simply part of you.
I hope your days are filled with joy,
with health and peace and rest,
with love and laughter in your home
and every future blessed.
I know I’ll miss you deeply,
and feel lonely when you’re gone,
a little lost without the space
where I’ve felt held so long.
But because of you,
I stand a little stronger than before.
You helped me keep on going,
so maybe one day I’ll restore.
6d ago
May 28, 2026 at 7:44 AM UTC
The trees lean in, just enough to listen.
Every branch held its breath.
Even the wind blew carefully,
as if it knew something here
fed on sound.
Nobody would notice,
the moment the light thinned,
the way green turned bruise-black,
the way the silence began to hum.
There.
The oldest tree in the forest
split open at the belly,
a hollow like a mouth
that had swallowed too many secrets.
Inside.
Movement, not seen but felt,
a slick shifting,
a patient hunger
coiled in velvet dark.
Then her.
A shape like a memory of the sea,
where no sea should be.
Vast, voluptuous, glistening,
all draped in elegance and rot.
Tentacles unfurling
like thoughts you didn’t choose,
like promises that come with consequences.
And there.
Caught in her grasp, a girl.
Limbs slack,
wrapped and held in a cradle that tightens
whenever they remember they could move.
Each tentacle pulses,
slow and rhythmic,
drinking something invisible -
not blood,
not breath,
something quieter.
Resolve.
Will.
The small voice that says no.
It drains her in whispers.
‘You don’t belong here’.
Say it.
The thought flickers
behind her eyes.
‘You don’t have power over me’.
Say it.
Her lips tremble,
but the forest leans closer.
Laughter swells,
filling every space where courage might grow.
Run.
Fight.
Anything?
But the tentacles tighten,
not around the body
but around the fragile spark of choice.
And so she hangs there,
not defeated—
just paused forever in power’s embrace
at the edge of defiance.
The creature feeds best on that.
Hope, interrupted.
Somewhere deep inside,
buried under silk-dark coils,
a voice still insists—
You could end this.
But it echoes too softly now,
drowned in the wet, patient sound
of something feeding
on the words never spoken.
Apr 28
Apr 28, 2026 at 11:22 AM UTC
She wakes—awake—awake again,
A body frozen, mind in pain.
Hands that struck,
Hands that stole,
Left her undone, never whole.
Shock, fear, shame -bloom-bloom-bloom
Her pulse a hammer, heart a tomb.
She flinches fast,
fists held tight,
The night is long, the day a fight.
Rage waits beneath her hollow chest,
She can’t feel it though - denied, suppressed.
She tries to reach - it slips away,
A spark that hides, then dies each day.
Why-why-why the echoes call,
Crushed as fists rise, fists fall.
Time stretches thin,
body still,
Her voice locked fast against her will.
Mirrors break, her eyes reflect,
Shards of self she can’t collect.
Roots twist deep beneath the earth,
Hollow, buried with self worth
She breathes,
she waits,
she cannot fight,
Pleading death will come each night
The storm within,
a coil,
a tide,
A fractured soul she cannot hide.
Yet in the shards,
something’s alight
What do I do to try ignite
the anger and the rightful rage,
to stop the pain and turn the page.
Apr 24
Apr 24, 2026 at 7:02 AM UTC
The sunlight comes back like nothing ever happened.
Golden light spilling over hedges,
soft as forgiveness I don’t deserve.
Daffodils nod their yellow heads
as if the world has decided, again, to keep going.
Easter arrives dressed in pink and white petals,
in birdsong, in the fragile green of things
that dare to begin again.
Everything insists on life -
loudly, brightly, without hesitation.
And I try to breathe it in,
a shadow among blossom,
wondering why the sun feels like exposure
instead of warmth.
There are flowers opening in every direction,
but inside me something stays closed,
a fist around old winters
that never fully thawed.
This is a season of rebirth,
of rolling stones away,
of breath returning to quiet bodies.
But no one understands
how dark and loud the past can be
in contrast to a world
soft and new.
How pain sharpens in the sunlight.
How loneliness is louder
when everyone else is awakening.
I want to love it -
confetti blossom, bleating lambs, hatching chicks, the sky stretching wide and blue.
I want to step into it fully,
To be alive amongst the new born.
But I am tired in a way
that spring does not understand.
A relentless, constant tiredness
that sunlight can’t bring to life.
Petals fall, and fall, and fall,
and somehow the branches do not despair.
They let go.
How I ache to let go.
Yet I’m held between the wanting to for it all to end,
and the faintest of hope
for something to begin again.
Apr 24
Apr 24, 2026 at 7:01 AM UTC
There was a softness once,
an innocence,
light enough to mistake for hope.
It was taken.
Now her body remembers first
before thought, before breath
a tightening, a warning,
a door that never fully closes.
Her voice is somewhere far off, or maybe locked within,
buried under the weight of silence,
pressing, pressing
never breaking through.
Inside, something splits without sound.
Not clean. Not quick.
A slow tearing
that keeps happening, again and again
Somewhere between dusk and dawn
long after it should be over.
Her body forgets it can refuse.
Everything narrows
to endurance.
There is a moment
always a moment
where she leaves herself behind,
watches from the ceiling tiles she counted
as if it might hurt less that way.
It doesn’t.
An echo lingers into the next day
a crawling under the skin,
a hot sticky stain that won’t stay still,
a pulse of wrongness
she cannot scrub out.
After, the world resumes its shape
as if nothing has been taken,
as if nothing is missing.
But something is always missing.
And underneath it all,
a low, constant whisper
not loud enough to hear,
not soft enough to ignore
telling her
she will never be whole.
Apr 24
Apr 24, 2026 at 7:00 AM UTC
I’ll get dressed in courage like armour too thin,
Smile like a lighthouse, storm raging within.
I’m supposed to be a ‘leader’, measured and clear,
But I shake when I’m triggered, frozen in fear.
I’ve tried every door, knocked softly, then hard,
Redrew all the maps, laid out every card.
“Here is the role, here’s where you belong,”
But refusal stood firm, defiant and strong.
Memories close in when conflict appears,
shouting harsh voices I’ve learned to fear -
“You’re cruel, you’re worthless, they’ll all turn away,
You’re flailing and failing, just let her stay.”
But I’ll try to stand upright, rehearsed and composed,
While something inside me quietly erodes.
I’ll cheer others on, say “You’ve got this, you’re great,”
As my self esteem splinters under the weight.
I hope in a year she’ll look back and see
This ending was space, and not cruelty.
But tonight it’s my burden, my name on the line,
The loneliness of choosing what feels so unkind.
I didn’t choose power; I chose what was right,
Even while trembling, even at night.
I can’t help but be human, cracked, aching, and sore -
A leader who bleeds, yet still opens the door.
Apr 24
Apr 24, 2026 at 7:00 AM UTC
Twenty-six weeks, a steady tide,
of showing up, of trying, of staying inside
a circle of voices, a rhythm, a frame,
a place where my pain could be spoken by name.
Now the calendar’s quieter, the structure is gone,
and I’m scared of the dark where I’ll practice alone.
No check-ins, no circle, no weekly hello
just me and the skills I’m hoping I know.
I’m grateful, though
deep in my bones I can see
I carry a toolbox that’s travelling with me.
Breath and awareness, distress riding out,
names for my feelings instead of just doubt.
When trauma taps hard on the old hidden doors,
I hope I remember I’ve been here before.
I can pause. I can ground. I can soften the flame.
I don’t have to vanish to get through the shame.
I hope for relationships gentler and true,
With space for a 'me' that is not shrinking you.
I’m learning that freezing and turning to pain
was how I survived, it doesn’t have to remain.
Maybe one day my voice will learn to speak out,
when I ask for my needs without drowning in guilt.
Maybe “no” will be something I’m able to say,
and boundaries will hold, not be washed away.
Self-respect is a muscle, still tender, still new,
But I’m trying to train it - slow reps will do.
This isn’t the ending; it’s just the beginning,
the first careful stitches I’m sewing within me.
Some days will be rough, and I know I may fear
that I’m barely afloat, head just keeping clear.
But I’m choosing to stay. I’m choosing to try.
There are other ways forward - I don’t have to die.
So here’s to the group, and the time, and the trust,
and here’s to myself - for continuing, just.
With skills in my pockets and hope in my view,
I step into next - uncertain, but true.
Apr 24
Apr 24, 2026 at 6:59 AM UTC
I rehearse my lines like a prayer gone wrong,
DEAR MAN steps I drag along.
Describe the facts, keep feelings thin,
don’t let the past come crashing in.
Express, they say, but I was taught
that feelings cost more than they’re worth.
My mind still echoes with the thought
Stay small, stay safe, don’t rock the earth.
Assert your needs - what a cruel refrain,
like asking fire not to burn.
My “no” still tastes like bloodied pain,
a lesson I was forced to learn.
Reinforce the good, explain the why,
promise outcomes, soften tone,
but every time I try, I lie -
I never meant to stand alone.
Mindful now, I watch myself
fade mid-sentence, disappear.
Appear confident - how on earth?
when fear has lived here year by year.
Negotiate, bend, adjust, concede,
call it compromise, call it grace,
but really it’s the same old need
to keep the peace,
to know my place.
So I give in, again, again,
trade self-respect for borrowed calm,
my boundaries break like paper skin
pressed flat beneath another’s palm.
They say it’s easier with time,
but time just sharpens what I know,
the skill is sound, the steps are fine—
it’s me who never gets to grow.
Hope feels like a language lost,
a word I’m scared to say out loud.
I count the damage, count the cost,
and bow my head instead of proud.
If this is healing, it feels fake,
a script I mouth, a role I play.
I try DEAR MAN; but it all breaks,
and I still choose the quiet way.
Jan 12
Jan 12, 2026 at 8:27 AM UTC
Let’s raise a glass to another year,
voices close, future unclear.
I lift my eyes and I’m still surprised
that I made it here - still breathing, alive.
My wife, my anchor, patient and strong,
you stayed when the nights stretched painfully long.
You never demanded I be okay,
just loved me through every broken day.
My friends - who showed up, never looked away,
who sat with my quiet and chose to stay.
No judgment spoken, no debt to repay,
just open hearts when I’d lost my way.
Thank you all - for loving what I couldn’t see,
for helping and hugging, for believing in me.
For treating my hurt like it wasn’t my shame,
for saying I matter,
no ******** or blame.
I’m sorry - for the fear that I saw in your eyes,
for every worry I caused, every heavy sigh.
For the weight of concern that I laid at your feet,
when standing upright felt more like defeat.
I’m sorry I’m here and still so in pain,
still learning how to live with my brain.
Still working through wounds I didn’t choose,
yet somehow feel guilty for carrying them too.
A new year awaits, and I won’t pretend
that I’m healed, or fearless, or near the end.
There’s trauma to face, old scars to tend,
and days I’ll need help again and again.
I’m afraid I’m not strong.
I’m afraid that I’ll fall.
I’m afraid I won’t be enough for you all.
But I’m here tonight,
and that counts I hope,
fragile and broken,
but trying to cope.
Thank you so much
for helping me through,
and I’m sorry but grateful to be surrounded by you.
I don’t promise light.
I can’t promise I’ll win,
Only that I’ll try to keep fighting,
try not to give in,
And if I falter, if I lose my way,
I’ll remember tonight,
that you came and I stayed.
Jan 12
Jan 12, 2026 at 8:26 AM UTC