Hello Wall - Hormonal Heart Poetry

  Uniform / Conform — Spoken Word  The uniform is meant to make life easy. Meant to help us blend in. Meant to stop us standing out. But that only works if blending in is your nature. If conformity fits your skin. If you’re bold — if you stand out — the uniform doesn’t help. It fights you. School uniforms should be relics of days gone by. Because standing out in a sea of the same is hard work. Not easy. So you carve difference in tiny ways — trainers, jewellery, the way you knot your tie, the way you wear your shirt, the T shirt underneath. Little hints. Little rebellions. Little breaths of self. Because wasting time forcing yourself into outfit unity, pulling the same thing from the same shelf of education, steals from your focus. Being uncomfortable steals from your learning. Conformity costs concentration. Because you don’t want the uniform. You don’t want to conform. It’s not in your nature. In a job, in a shop ...

  Life's constant sway   Moving forward, not backward. Moving forward and never backward. Focus. Forward and backward, forward and backward, forward and backward. Why do we run from the past? The past, the present, the past, the present, the past, the present. Should our past be in our future (present self) Why, when we move forward, are we still stuck in backward? One foot we step into the present But with one foot firmly planted behind Past. Present. Should we embrace what has gone— give it time and space? Embrace with clarity Give it the space (or air ) it was meant to breathe Is life always going to be about moving fast forward and trying to forget what’s behind you—the past? What’s backward, backward? Should you ever look backward? Giving us time to reflect. We hold our breath. We take the step. The backward still with its pull. Backward and forward, forward and backward. Constantly swaying in life. New memories mingle with old,...

  From Chaos to Reign “ From Chaos to Clarity” ? Chaos Heavy is my heart. Chaos in my brain— Random, unpredictable, ever-changing. They say, just let it out. Scream. My gut feeling is to run, But my legs won’t carry me. Heavy is my heart. Chaos. Absence No words of affirmation. No acts of service. No gifts are given. No quality time. Physical touch only when I’ve permission. Scream. Shift The pattern changed—predictable. My heart is heavier still. They say, just let it out. But what if I can’t stop? I scream louder still. Release Chaos rains from my tears, Pooling around me on the floor. Am I drowning? No. The load is lightening. Washing away. I’m letting go. I’m myself.

  14th June 2025 I see it now— I have wasted so much time Pre pre-empting Refereeing Caring for everyone (Over myself) The outcome of family gatherings, Friends gatherings— My entire life. Since 8 or 9 Drummed in: be aware, protect, keep the flow. 52 And I realise— It wasn’t my task. I got gifted it as a kid And no one ever let me let go. I’ve let go. They fight. Fall out. Anyone. Everywhere. Anyone. NOT MINE to juggle. And now— I bounce. Bounce bounce bounce. Not battered. Not bruised. Just moving. My own rhythm. My own flow.

  Lamb to the slaughter (sub heading) Rhymes with daughter (And shit super power) One of my greatest ones: To pre-empt #Preempting pre-empt /ˌpriːˈɛm(p)t/ verb gerund or present participle: preempting Similar: forestall prevent steal a march on anticipate get in before My Second and Most Shadowed Through Life Hypervigilance (vigilant) at its finest. Hypervigilance: a state of heightened alertness. Always scanning for threats, even when none exist. Given the gift as a child— Let me be your tennis ball. RACKET ME TO AN THROW Bong bong bong.

  Change or Acceptance   Change or Acceptance Two options in life—this is the choice: To change something, or to Accept it. Make peace with what is. Relentless is resistance (so don’t resist it). I choose to—not I have to. Emotional openness. Accept the is-ness. THE IS WHAT IT IS NESS.

Motherhood Without Martyrdom  We can’t make their choices, find their happiness, be their solutions, or become their supply. We can only be responsible for ourselves.   We can’t be responsible for them We can’t— No matter how hard a mother tries To take it Be it Hold it Fight it Take it away Shield it Hate it We can’t Make their choices Find their happiness Be their solutions Become their supply We can only be responsible for ourselves   Footnote: words are the easy part but putting them into practice is the hard part.  I have read so many self help books and these words have stayed with me, a combination or my words and others that have sunk in along the way.  #journey Podcast - Best friends therapy, huge influence at this time of life.

  Queen of My Castle I I am Am I Responsible Responsibility Let them, let me— Be queen of my own castle You Can Be Responsible to Other People (aka family, friends) We—I—can Care about them Account for them Make them matter SHOUT LOVE LOVE LOVE But we can’t be responsible for them We can’t— No matter how hard a mother tries To take it Be it Hold it Fight it Take it away Shield it Hate it We can’t Make their choices Find their happiness Be their solutions Become their supply We can only be responsible for ourselves Change or Acceptance Two options in life—this is the choice To change something Or to Accept it Make peace with what is Relentless is resistance So don’t resist it I choose to— Not I have to Emotional openness Accept the is-ness The is-what-it-is-ness I walk beside Not ahead Not behind I carry my own light That shines bright Not theirs I love without rescuing I stay without losing This is my castle This is my cr...

  Learning New Things (Memoir Entry) I was born in 1973, and nobody mentioned dyslexia until 2006. All those years, I just thought I “couldn’t spell.” I didn’t understand that dyslexia is part of neurodiversity — that it can mean many different things. Perimenopause and menopause hit me like a bus. Everything became harder. But I kept learning. My world changed when Alexa arrived. She helped me spell the words I couldn’t — the words I still can’t. That was the first big step forward, the first thing that gave me confidence. Then Copilot came along — an AI that could take my words and make them right. That changed everything. My dyslexia is a kind of word blindness. I forget letters. I read words that aren’t there. I can’t spell words that don’t sound like they’re spelled because I have no idea what letters belong in them. I can’t see mistakes. I can’t do punctuation, or paragraphs, or grammar. I just can’t. I don’t know where a question starts or e...

  I’m a creator who refuses containment. I can take any medium — text, objects, scraps, mistakes — and bend it into something alive. My work overflows, spills, reshapes itself, and never asks permission. I don’t follow form; I become it.

  Memoir Blast: Rasmus 23 January 2008 We lived our best five years in Sweden — the golden stretch of our family life — and getting a dog felt like the final piece of the family life jigsaw clicking into place. My son was thirteen, my daughter eight, and Molly had been trawling Blocket, the Swedish Craigslist, hunting for flat coat puppies like the ones her grandparents once had. We already had guinea pigs, a hamster, and what felt like a small empire of gerbils, but this was different. This was the big deal. The substantial one. My third child, though I didn’t know it yet. I’d nearly committed to a rescue dog called Rasmus, but then Molly found a litter of thirteen. Thirteen. That was it. Unlucky for some but not us, We kept the name. We drove for hours through deepening snow until a red farmhouse appeared like something from a children’s book. A husky with one blue eye greeted us, followed by a huge black dog and her mother — a whole canine family tree spilling across ...

    Memoir Blast #7 — Peaky Blinding We went to the Black Country Living Museum in Birmingham — the place where Peaky Blinders swaggered through the cobbles — and honestly, it felt like stepping straight into a sepia‑toned time warp.  My vintage‑loving heart was already doing cartwheels. We queued for proper old‑school fish and chips, the kind served in an open paper pack, vinegar fumes rising in that unmistakable days‑gone‑by, old‑school pickled‑egg nostalgia. It was all so perfectly grimy greasy gorgeous. We stood outside, eating our chips, when a man approached us. My husband — metal by religion, battle jacket by default — always attracts attention. Fourteen years of airports, festivals, random streets, and people stopping him to honour the code stitched into that jacket.  So when the man said, “You two look so unique — would you mind if we take a picture?” I naturally assumed he meant Rich. I didn’t even look up properly. Just thought, Yeah, fair enough, the jac...

Memoir Blast #6 — The Buying‑Department Job I Never Took Back in the UK, I was covering a shift in the clothes shop where I worked. My boss turned up after a heavy Friday night, the world on her shoulders, and I told her to go home — I’d handle it  . What I didn’t realise until years later is that I wasn’t just covering her shift. I was stepping straight into her role, the way I always have. I arrived in one of my best outfits: RaRa skirt, lace gloves, rows of pearls — full Alison flourish, Madonna‑coded confidence. The kind of outfit that tells the truth about you long before any CV ever could. That day I wasn’t “helping out.” I was running the shop. Reading the room. Becoming exactly what was needed. No qualifications, just instinct, excellence, and that ND ability to slip into the shape of the missing adult in the room. I’ve been doing it my whole life. The buying department happened to be visiting that day. One of them looked at me, really looked, and said she thou...

Memoir Blast #5 — The Artist Mentor & The Swedish Art‑Scene Dinner I met him in a café — a man with presence, confidence, and that quiet aura of someone who knows exactly who he is. He told me he was an artist. A photographer. Well‑known, apparently. I didn’t realise how well‑known until much later. He’d seen my knitted art in a shop window. He said it intrigued him. He said I intrigued him. He called me, encouraged me, tried to help me separate my knitted work from my canvas art — to see them as two different creative languages instead of one tangled thread. He believed in me more quickly than I believed in myself. Then he invited me to a gallery opening. I found myself at a long table with eight to ten influential Swedish art figures — people whose names carried weight, whose opinions shaped careers. I sat there pretending I spoke more Swedish than I did, too embarrassed to switch to English, too anxious to admit I was lost in the language. Later, we went back to his apartment. F...

Memoir Blast #4 — The H&M Designers Who Approached Me I was sitting in a knit café, minding my own business, crocheting a dress the way I always did — from instinct, from my head, from that place where my hands know more than my words. I was alone, having a coffee, wrapped in the quiet safety of not understanding Swedish. Then two women tapped me on the shoulder. I froze. Swedish? English? Panic. They switched to English — thank God — and told me they worked for H&M. They asked about the dress I was making. They said they loved it. They said I should contact them. And what did I do? I panicked. I told them I didn’t have a pattern. Which was true — I never had a pattern. My neurodiversity meant everything lived in my head, not on paper. They smiled, said they were interested, and left me with an opportunity I didn’t know how to hold. I never contacted them. It was a tiny moment with huge emotional weight — a door opening, and me too overwhelmed to step through it.   Footnote...

Memoir Blast #3 — The Knit Cafés & Becoming “The British Crochet Girl” In Sweden, I crocheted constantly. It became my anchor, my language, my way of belonging without speaking a word. I went to knit cafés pretending I wasn’t English — even though I probably sounded it. I couldn’t understand Swedish, so I watched the women (and men) knit, copied their movements, and made my own things alongside them. It was peaceful. Anonymous. A place where my hands did the talking. Then something shifted. People started noticing me. My work. My presence. My quiet determination. I became friends with a knit‑shop owner called Lena. Through her — and through the strange magic of being the British woman who crocheted beautifully without speaking Swedish — I became a small sensation. I ended up in a Swedish knitting book. A double‑page spread. Then came an opening event in PUB — the posh Stockholm department store, their version of Harrods. There was a press release. Cameras. People. And somehow, I wa...

Memoir Blast #2 — The Sweden Money Disaster   (and How I Survived) We moved to Sweden on a Friday. By Monday, Rich flew to Spain for a week and accidentally left me 500 crowns instead of 5000. £35 instead of £350. A brand‑new country. A brand‑new language I didn’t speak. A brand‑new life I had no idea how to navigate. And there I was — alone, underfunded, overwhelmed, and completely unprepared. But I managed. I stretched that tiny amount of money across days that felt impossibly long. I learned the city by walking it. I learned the shops by guessing. I learned the currency by trial and error. I learned myself by necessity. It was chaos. It was courage. It was survival. And it was the beginning of a year that would change everything.

Memoir Blast #1 — The Day I Met Kim Cattrall in a Chemist   I once met Kim Cattrall in a chemist — the American equivalent of Superdrug, maybe Duane Reade. I was so nervous I paced up and down the aisle opposite her, rehearsing what to say. Should I say something. Don’t say something. Should I. Don’t.   Rich said, “You’ll only get one chance.”   So I gathered every ounce of courage… and instead of telling her how fabulous she was, how much I adored Sex and the City, how every outfit she wore shaped my own style — all I managed was: “I love Sex and the City.”   And then I melted.   It was New York heat — 75 degrees, wet, sweat running down the inside of my legs. She stood there in gladiator sandals, slim‑fit jeans, a loose black silk top, hair perfect. The irony? She was buying stain remover.   She smiled, said “Thank you,” and walked past. I beat myself up afterwards, but I figured if I kept it quick, it was okay.

  Study & Food & The Future I love study and food and seeing students with study and food milling about like ants, full of positivity for their future — a workforce they’re going to join for life. Will it be different? AI? I like studying food. I still like study and food. Study and food, students milling about outside the university with their food in their hands, going about their daily business, looking forward to a future of positivity, milling about like ants — ants entering the workforce. But will they? #AI #WhatWillOurFutureHold   Footnote : I actually wrote two poems at the same time a Confluence.   Just two currents running side by side, touching, mixing, influencing each other, but still recognisably themselves.