Category: Guest Blog

Somewhere, a Sunday, or maybe a June,
A little bit of morning left over from noon,
The curtains are open, or maybe they’re not,
There’s something familiar I’ve almost forgot.
A little bit here, a little bit gone,
A half-remembered face in a half-finished song.

Wasn’t it summer a minute ago?
So why does the garden look covered in snow?
Perhaps it was yesterday, perhaps it was years,
Perhaps all the colours have run into tears.
And photographs smile with their little white teeth,
There’s a girl in the corner who looks rather like me,
With summer still caught in the hem of her shoes,
I wonder whatever became of her too.

Oh, the days have a way of becoming the same,
With a different arrangement, a different name.
And the years bleed together like ink in the rain,
Till tomorrow and yesterday look much the same.

A little more distant, a little less clear,
The sound of a voice that I almost can’t hear,
And round goes the afternoon, round goes the room,
A little more yesterday, a little less June.

Perhaps it’s still morning, perhaps it’s half-eight,
Perhaps I’ve been early, perhaps I’ve been late.
The clock has a face, but it doesn’t quite show,
And I’m sure there was something I wanted to know.

When I was younger, I was richer,
With pockets full of stones,
Of buttons, shells and treasures
That I’d gathered as my own.

I had kingdoms in the garden,
And castles in the rain,
A blanket made a fortress,
A cardboard box, a train.

The moon belonged to no one,
The stars were mine to keep,
And every whispered bedtime tale
Was something soft to sleep.

A penny was a fortune,
A puddle was the sea,
And every passing summer
Seemed endless as could be.

I never knew the value
Of minutes ticking by,
Or how the smallest moments
Could one day make me cry.

For growing up was costly,
Though no one told me why,
The older I became,
The less I seemed to buy.

So, when I miss my riches,
I don’t miss gold or things,
I miss the little treasures
That childhood somehow brings.

When I was younger, I was richer,
Though I never understood,
That having less could somehow mean
I had more than I could.

Why is there an if in life?
Why does every road divide?
Why can one choice become a knife
That leaves another life behind?

Why do we say, ‘if I had known,’
As though the past could hear us speak?
As though the words we should have shown
Could find the mouths we failed to seek?

Why does ‘if’ mean there was a choice?
A moment where we could have stayed?
A different path, a different voice,
A different life we might have made?

And why, if life is meant to be,
Must we imagine what could change?
Why show us all we cannot see,
Then make the things we know feel strange?

Perhaps the if is why we care,
Why every moment feels so brief.
For if no other life was there,
Perhaps there’d be no need for grief.

Maybe an if is just a sign
That nothing living stays the same,
That every life is drawn in time
And every choice becomes a name.

Hey, look, you’re looking might fine,
Feels like I’m breathing iodine.
You’re bright like hydrogen in the morning sun,
One look at you and my day’s begun.

You’re light like helium, lifting me high,
Got me floating every time you walk by,
You’re strong like carbon, steady and true,
A rare kind of strength in everything you do.

You’re the spark, you’re the flame,
The little mystery I can’t explain,
How every little thing you say,
Keeps stealing all my thoughts away.

You’re gold, you’re silver, you’re platinum too,
But nothing on Earth’s quite as shiny or new,
You’re oxygen, keeping my lungs alive,
The chemistry that makes my heart thrive,
If love’s an element, then boy, that’s you,
The perfect reaction I keep falling into.

You’re neon, glowing whenever you smile,
You make the dark feel brighter for miles.
You’re copper, warm like the summer sun,
And somehow every minute becomes more fun.

You’re the iron, strong when the world gets tough,
When I feel like falling, you’re more than enough.
You’re calcium, keeping me standing tall,
You’re the one I know I’ll call through it all.

Out of every element beneath the sun,
You’re my number one.

You are somewhere where the ocean glows,
Where the salt wind dances and the warm tide flows.
I’m barefoot dancing across kitchen tiles,
Counting down the days but not the miles.

You’ve got palm trees leaning with the breeze,
Coconut shadows and endless seas.
I’ve got golden skies and a suitcase packed,
A little bit of summer tucked in my backpack.

You’ll find magic underneath the lights,
Castle dreams and fireworks at night.
I’ll find mountains painted green and gold,
Stories in streets that are centuries old.

We’re chasing summers, running wherever daylight goes,
You’re following waves, I’m following roads.
A thousand little moments, a thousand things to do,
And I’ll save all my favourite ones to tell back to you.

And isn’t it lovely, the world so wide,
With oceans between us, and miles to stride?
Yet every morning, wherever we are,
We’re waking beneath the same bright star.

So take your pictures, collect your views,
Bring home stories and skies of blue.
I’ll bring back sunsets, songs from the road,
Little pieces from the places I go.

We’ll meet in September with sun-kissed skin,
A thousand adventures tucked underneath our grin.
You’ll tell your stories, I’ll tell mine,
Two little summers that somehow align.

I have been wondering lately,
Of things I cannot seem to know,
Why every seed must split itself,
Before it ever starts to grow.

How the sun that wakes the morning flower,
Will watch its colours fade away.
How the rain that feeds the roots below,
Can wash the soil that made them stay.

How the hand that holds a candle,
Must still surrender it to the night.
How the stars that guide the traveller,
Must disappear before the light.

For what must a fish believe of water,
That carries it from birth to end?
The same clear depths that let it breathe,
Will watch its final moments descend.

The ocean was its first true home,
The only world it ever knew,
Yet still the water that kept it alive,
Becomes the water it is cooked into.

And they say a fish that keeps its mouth shut,
Will never meet the waiting hook.
That silence is the safest road,
And wisdom is the choice it took.

But tell me, is it wiser then to never speak, to never fight?
Or does the fish that fears the line, still lose to something out of sight?

And maybe I am wrong to ask,
Or maybe asking is the cost.
For every soul that seeks the truth,
Must first accept how much is lost.

So if the cradle holds the grave
And mercy carries the pain along,
If all that teaches us to live
Must teach us where we don’t belong…

Then tell me, was the world made strange?
Or have we simply lost the sight,
To understand why everything that gives us breath
Can also take our light?

Winter asked us to stand close enough to keep each other warm,
To find a little shelter from the weight of every storm.
The nights were long and endless, but I never feared the dark,
Because your hands were always there, a place to find my heart.

You knew the words that saved me, knew the battles I had faced,
You stood beside the shadows when I thought I’d lost my place.
I never had to wonder if you saw the things I couldn’t say,
Because somehow you made the hardest nights feel softer anyway.

Before the year had opened, before the skies turned blue,
Before the first of January taught me, I could lose you.
Before the days got longer, before the seasons changed their tune,
I swear the world was softer underneath that winter moon.

Then midnight came so quietly, no warning in the air,
No thunder splitting open skies, no signs we would change that year.
Just little things grew distant, little words left unsaid,
Until the warmth we used to share became a memory instead.

I’ve watched the daylight grow, the evenings stretching wide,
Funny how the world expands while something fades inside.
Fields grow wider every week, rivers run their course,
Everything is finding somewhere, everything except my thoughts.

Summer came with open windows, with a warmth I couldn’t hold,
With flowers reaching for the sun and leaving me out in the cold.
The trees have learnt to let go, the birds have learnt to fly,
And I keep searching for the winter written somewhere in the sky.

I don’t want to keep reminding you of wounds you cannot see,
Or turn every quiet moment into asking you to rescue me.
I know the storm has passed us, I know the rain has dried,
But some things cast a shadow even when they’ve moved aside.

I don’t need you to fix the winter, or undo the months between,
I only wish you missed the warmth of everything we’d once been.
Because summer keeps on blooming, and the world keeps moving on,
But I’m still holding onto winter, wondering where we went wrong.

Orchid child with velvet skin,
Where lilac light comes drifting in,
So soft it feels like borrowed air,
As if it knows to handle with care.

She stands where morning falls too wide,
With nowhere gentle left to hide,
As though the day was never meant,
For something made so delicate.

Why was she placed where breezes roam,
In air that does not feel like home?
Where every passing, carless part,
Can settle soft yet leave a mark?

An orchid blooms in shaded glass,
Where filtered hours drift and pass,
It leans from light it cannot hold,
Too pale for heat, too fine for cold.

Its petals bruise at slightest change,
From touch too near, from air too strange.
It drinks from quiet, measured rain,
And turns away from weight and strain.

So she, alike, in silence grown,
Takes the world too sharply known.
Each moment pressing, faint but deep,
In hues her fragile form will keep.

Why shape a thing so finely made,
To wander bright, unyielding shade,
Where even light, in golden streams,
Can feel too much for tender things?

Why give her skin that answers so,
To every shift it comes to know,
That even time, in passing by,
Can leave its trace and not say why?

Is there a place where she might be,
Untouched by quiet injury?
Or must she bloom, though trembling still,
In ways the world cannot make still?

An orchid kept from harsher skies
Still folds beneath too-watchful eyes.
Orchid child with velvet skin,
Still lets the lilac light drift in.

Don’t pretend you don’t hear me, don’t pretend you don’t see,
I’m right where you left me, exactly where I said I’d be.
In the quiet you bury, in the corners you keep,
I’ve been tracing your breathing while you’re trying to sleep.

You can soften your focus, you can blur what you need,
But I’m patient, in case you forgot. I never leave.

Just open your eyes now, I don’t want to repeat.
Just open your eyes, I’m too close to retreat.
Just open your eyes, before I complete.

So, I’ll count to three.

One-

You remember how gently I would settle your mind,
How I stayed in the background, never crossing the line,
How I moved like a whisper you could take or refuse?
I was something you wanted, something safe you could use.

You leaned a little closer, I learned where you creep,
Now I live in the silence underneath what you keep.

Say you’re done,
I’ve already won

Two-

Now I’m closer, feel me in your chest?
Every thought bends around me, I don’t need to suggest.
Fight, deny, try to hold to what’s true,
But the pull feels familiar, and it’s me coming back for you.

Every step you take forward, I’m still under your skin,
every “no” that you say is where I’ve already been.
You can name it, you can frame it like it’s something you lose,
but I’m stitched in the silence you refuse to refuse.

Keep resisting, fight to stay clean,
But you don’t even know what that truly means.

Just give up and give in,
You can’t fight what’s within.

Three-

Now listen.

Don’t stall me.
Don’t try.

You can feel it, right?
You already know why.

No distance.
No lie.

You don’t leave.
You comply.

Too slow.
Too late.
That’s me.
That’s fate.

Still reaching?
Still sure?
Still thinking you’re more?

Stop.
That’s cute.
But it’s too late to undo what I’ve rooted in you.
Too deep to pretend you’re anything new.

I don’t leave when you fight me, when you swear I won’t stay,
I don’t leave when you’re sleeping, I don’t leave when you pray.

Don’t pretend you don’t hear me, don’t pretend you don’t see,
You were never getting away, never going to be free.