Hello Wall - Hormonal Heart Poetry

  FRIDA THE MAKING OF AN ICON  Artist Way Day — by Julia Cameron I went to the guest opening of the Frida Kahlo exhibition at Tate Modern, outfit fully Frida‑ready. I thought I knew what I’d see, but it wasn’t the usual Frida mythology. The whole thing feels calmer, more surreal, more intimate. The curation is sharp: woven, details I’ve never seen before, threaded with work from artists shaped by her. The colour is there, but it doesn’t overwhelm. And the Diego‑and‑Frida dynamic still blows my mind. How she stayed in his shadow, how fiercely she loved him, how that love pushed her to create and also undo her. You feel all of it in the work — the devotion, the damage, the brilliance. I’m no expert, just speaking from the gut. Her art is dark, sad, beautiful, magnetic. The original queen of selfies. Nothing like her. Footnote — Freedom  My art time is important Artist Way Day — by Julia Cameron   (read her book) Lately I’ve been trying to live more like Julia Cam...

  TITLE PAGE - (potential poetry pamphlet) A Small Life, Repainted Poems by Alison Friday CONTENTS 1. Soon It’ll Be Our Turn 2. The Irony of Life: How I Lost My Garden 3. Why Families Fracture 4. Showing Up Anyway 5. One Small Corner CHAPBOOK - ORDER 1. Soon It’ll Be Our Turn (A poem about home, control, and the moment a metaphor becomes truth.) 2. The Irony of Life: How I Lost My Garden (A reflective piece about overwhelm, longing, and the gardens we can’t keep.) 3. Why Families Fracture (A generational truth telling about women carrying the emotional weight.) 4. Showing Up Anyway (A poem essay about ND life, menopause, humour, and surviving the day.) 5. One Small Corner (A quiet reclamation of joy, daisies, and the smallest possible hope.) Soon It’ll Be Our Turn Every morning I leave the driveway and tell myself I’m lucky to have one. I look across the road at the house with the fresh paint, the crisp g...

  More Than Menopause: The 28‑Day Pattern I Was Never Told About More Than Menopause - Repeating things because ND Menopausal women forget as fast as they learn I keep saying I’m not good with words, but the truth is I’m too good with them. My problem isn’t expression — it’s overflow. And now that I’ve started documenting my days, my outfits, my dips, my speed, my confusion, I can finally see what’s been hiding in plain sight. I am still on a 28‑day cycle , even without periods. A month ago, the exact same thing happened. The same dip. The same confusion. The same “why bother” that is not me. I can literally scroll back through my reels and watch myself slide out of myself. The Early Signs I Keep Missing It starts quietly: I don’t do my hair - Curl appreciation is important to me. I skip makeup - I'm there or not I care or not. My outfits feel wrong I look at myself and think, What was I even doing? I go from full Sex‑and‑the‑City glam to “just comfortable” And that’s the first re...

A poem about the quiet heartbreak of expecting something to hold together, only to watch it collapse in your hands — the sensory overload, the missed moment, and the grief of realizing it’s nothing like you hoped it would be. You’re Left holding a piece of slightly wet toast  TOAST Why does nobody see how hard this is. It’s like starting with a firm piece of toast, covered in chunky butter you’re delighted to eat. Then, as the butter melts, it seeps straight through.   you look at the toast.   You’re left unsure whether you even put the butter on in the first place,   and instead of that firm bite, you’re holding a piece of slightly wet bread, not at all what you expected.   The plate pooled with fat. The butter slipping through your fingers, running down your wrist whilst you wince and watch with no control, sensory overloaded by something that’s so happy yet so sad in the opportunity is missed.

  Insect Bites & Being So, So Bothered I had never been bitten by a mosquito in my entire life — not once — until perimenopause arrived and rewired my whole body. Then one summer I went to a show in Henley wearing a maxi dress, and when I left, my ankle felt wrong. Itchy, sore, unfamiliar. I didn’t even recognize it as a bite because I’d never had one before. The next day, three bites appeared where a mosquito must’ve got trapped in the dress. And they bothered me. Not just “itchy” bothered — brain‑screaming, sensory‑overload bothered . My mind kept shouting ouch ouch ouch because to me, something was wrong. I’m the kind of person who feels a single hair out of place, an ingrown hair, a thread on my skin. So three bites? They hijacked my whole system for days. That summer became a joke — me with my mosquito spray, my ankle bracelet, my arm bracelet, my Marmite intake doubled like some old wives’ tale warrior. But it worked. Or maybe I just became hyper‑vigilant. Either way, th...

  Blog Note: How My Stories Get Written I posted recently about how my stories don’t run in any kind of order — they land here as I find them, as I remember them, as I finally feel ready to write them. That’s still true. But I also want to explain how they get written, because the process matters just as much as the pieces themselves. Most of the current stories — the rants, the truths, the sharp little blasts — start as voice notes when I’m driving. That’s when my brain is loudest. Distracted, overloaded, thinking out loud, talking to myself the way I always have. I hit record, spill the thought, and send it to myself as an email. Then I print it. Then I go through it the best I can. Then Copilot helps me clean the spelling, the grammar, the loops, the repeats — because being neurodiverse means there are always repeats. Always echoes. Always the same sentence said three different ways because my brain is trying to land the point. And that’s the thing I need to say clearly: You w...

  The Day the Heat Finally Stopped One month into taking medication (Written before - watch - heart stress) The hot‑flush medication worked literally the day I took it. The downside is that it goes through your liver; the upside is that hot flushes have been one of the worst things I’ve dealt with — and I’ve overheated my whole life. But the last few years, with the oestrogen drop and my body’s functions changing, it became something else entirely. My brain would overheat the second I tried to concentrate. Before I even sipped my coffee, I’d be on fire because my brain was already predicting hot food. For years I couldn’t drink hot drinks or eat hot food. Everything had to cool. Everything took forever. But this past month? I’ve been able to go back to hot coffee, hot food, hot porridge — and it has blown my mind. It worked instantly. I was sat in my pyjamas at six in the morning, staring at my coffee, knowing exactly what was going to happen… and then it didn’t. My porridge didn’t...