Done being ‘one of the good ones’.
Done being an encyclopaedia for all.
Done being a headline in the papers.
Done being the ones to take the fall.

I fall enough without all that rhetoric
strength tenuous, standing but shattered – 
the system should be there to catch me
and, right now, that ‘net’ is in tatters.

The systems that claim to support us
only puts more barriers in place
DWP forms, 20 pages long
and wait lists measure years, not days.

Open your ears and listen
trust us and believe
we’re not here to leach tax payer’s money
to live, we need more than the scraps we receive.

Will I be able to do in five years time
what I’m able to do right now?
will I keep getting worse with, still, no help?
will I have to go on without?

Invisible without a walking stick
so nobody offers me a seat
I don’t ‘look disabled’ so I have to stand
on my already unsteady feet.

But why should I have to do that?
Persevere and ring myself dry?
Blood sweat and tears to get anywhere
‘cause there’s not a damned bench in sight.

So I sit on the ground and you stare, then, too
wondering why I’ve made that choice – 
but I spend more time looking around
than those who have a louder voice.

We’re locked out of those conversations
or spoken for, or about.
Your world simply isn’t built for us
and I’m getting too tired to shout.

Too tired of ripping up barriers.
Too tired of having to stand up and say
what is not accessible or thought-through enough –
this can’t continue to be the way

That the world works, or doesn’t –
it sure doesn’t work for me – 
when people assume what I can or can’t do
whether or not I disagree.

I’m not ashamed to be disabled,
though that label can be hard to hear.
I’m proud of what I’ve gone through,
it’s taken courage to just get here.

Honestly, some of you need to touch grass.
Mind your business when I’m using a mobility aid.
Don’t expect me to remedy your ignorance,
my capacity to educate fluctuates.

So, please, I beg you, keep your neb out.
I will tell you what I need – 
but there are things we need you to care about,
things we need you to see.

Like the systemic issues all around.
The systemic issues keeping us down.
The systemic issues that need to change.
The systemic issues that, still, remain.

And it’s all about conversations
and representations that don’t exist,
or a debate about our existence
without any of us involved in it.

It’s about the systems – 
One, alone, we cannot face –
but we hope for better, we have no choice
to hope it’ll be better one day.

Instead of asking me ‘how I do it’,
as if I have a choice,
support disabled people 
and help to raise our voice

I can’t believe I have to keep saying this,
but, disabled people are people –
people with lives and desires
who need equity, not to be ‘equal’.

Not defined
As the person who can tick a box Or fill a quota
or a diversity candidate
to look good on your brochure

Not defined by
the potential I wasn’t able to reach,
the art I wasn’t able to create
and make

Not defined by anyone

Not definable by anyone

Not defined by the corporations who talk and
don’t do anything
who get their EDI certificate
when conveniently forget to advocate

For my access needs
not a want but a need
or to fix the system that uses
our weaknesses to impede 
us

Some people take longer
Some people never can
I face barriers
just to be who I am

And I say what I mean
and I hold my morals strong
but if I don’t have the rights
I will always be wrong

Time, grace and patience
goes a long way
kindness and openness to
Listen to what I say

Thats all that I ask
All that needs to happen
hold our voices to the light
and don’t be the one to dampen

I cannot be cured 
by a wellness trend
unsolicited advice
arrogance hard to comprehend

Sometimes it’s just about
opening your ears
listening and learning
So that we don’t disappear

Into ‘was’ or ‘could have been’
into another voice drowned out
seen as less or half a person
who’s wading on without

Disability din’t end
when lockdown measures did
flexibility out the window
ableism distilled

It hurts every person
when we worship being tired
productivity, the only thing 
that makes us worthy and admired

Being disabled means that 
I have to slow down
and it’s a new way to live
that capitalism can’t denounce

I want to be remembered 
with the right pronouns and name
I want to be remembered 
for who I became

When I began to accept
who I was in this world
and my mind opened up
and the ingrained messages unfurled

I want to be remembered as
messy and imperfect
and dysfunctional and whole
and living truth in earnest

As a 3-D human
not defined by words
made up to explain identities
that have existed for hundreds
of years

And create and make
and feel joy and peace
and exist as whole people
with our stories complete

I want to be remembered
as who I am

 as all of who I am

Hey. 

are you busy?

its fine if not
but im in the hospital
again
and the white walls
paired with fluorescence
are making me dizzy.

that familiar pain is
creeping up the right side
of my brain
again
filtering my vision
through a vignette.

its lonely
quiet…
and the seats are SO uncomfortable

i need you

your soft calming touch
like the med
warm waves lapping
at my chest.

i need a grounding weight
so i dont float away
before they call my name
to tell me
“Nothing’s wrong! Go home!”

so, weepy i will
and its fine if not
but if its okay…

i want to go home with you.

We feel restless, so we take a bus.
get the 1 to the beach and breathe clean air.
Take the pennies out of your coin bank-
Your investment in rainy seaside days,
fluorescent lights
and clinking copper comforts.

I go straight for the 2p games- you, the claw machines
You were always luckier than me.
The glass display case reflects back your toothy grin
As the teddy drops into the bin

Sticky carpets and crunchy speakers,
The ache in your knee from bending to see the screens-
Forgotten details of your favourite memories.
We cash out our tickets- dip dab, some maoams
Splurge on a slinky to share.

You want to stretch your legs,
So we head to the seafront
You hop onto the wall, and I follow along below.
I tell you we need to talk
And you look away, counting the cawing of seagulls.

I tell you where the pain lives in my body
and how every slow draw of breath radiates, dull, into my spine.
You tell me that you love me
Which means you are worried about me.
I’ve known you for too long now,
You can’t hide what that face means.

We search for somewhere to get a bucket and spade-
end up walking for over an hour.
Pass the spot where I had my first kiss
With someone who wasn’t you.
You never quite knew how to handle the shape of my longing.
Head back to the beach in silence.

It’s bittersweet,
Knowing this is coming to an end.
I close my eyes, listen to the crash of the waves,
Slowly dissipating back into the shore.
When I open my eyes again,
You’re gone. Just a trail of footprints in the sand.

My shoelaces are broken, both,
Torn in two for ten months,
Every inch stitch frayed, threatening.
One, knotted together, reframes the left
The other, still in two pieces,
Looks desperately foolish on the right.

I put on my shoes and wonder, always,
Why I haven’t replaced the laces.
It’s black belt procrastination, medals of despair.
There are new plain laces in my bag
And loveable shiny rainbows, free Pride gifts.
I’ve means, skills, desire and two broken laces.

Those proud shiny rainbows I dumped on a table
Are a symptom, a sign of the ways I’m unable
To sort out my home, or to tidy a shelf,
The truth is I barely look after myself.

I go out each day and I flail in routines,
Try to keep social norms but I flee social scenes.
Post photos and poems and religious critiques
No one wants but they cover up truth beyond bleak.

Right now as I write, it’s way past breakfast time
To wash a dish is beyond me, there are towers of grime.
I thought about breakfast as I lay in bed
And that made me sick so I’m hungry, unfed. 

I’d go mad in a hermitage but the world is too loud
I’m lonely as hell but can’t cope in a crowd
Stay at home with my books but I’m too blurred to read
Reject any help when I’m always in need.

Two Hoovers condemn me, they’re covered in dust.
One needs a part fitting, the other one’s bust.
Can’t sit down in the back room it’s too covered in mess
That needs clearing, it’s easy, but I’m stuck in distress.

 It’s hard to survive when the voices confuse,
It’s hard to commit when the voices abuse.
It’s hard to go out when the terror tells tales,
It’s hard to stay home but you think that you’ll fail.
It’s hard to get up when you haven’t slept,
It’s hard to get rest when each night you wept.
It’s hard to eat well when you’re so close to vomit.
It’s hard to continue when they say you should stop it.
It’s hard to seek help when you think you don’t matter,
It’s hard to speak out when your voice starts to shatter.
It’s hard to meet up with a friend for quiet drinks,
It’s hard to communicate when everything sinks.
It’s hard to be out there when each moment’s a fight.
It’s hard to find peace, too loud, too fast, too bright.
It’s hard to not hide myself, secluded, alone,
It’s hard to answer a message or answer a phone.
It’s hard to survive when the voices say “Die!”
It’s hard to find answers to questions, to “Why?”
It’s hard when you’re broken and perhaps can’t be fixed,
It’s hard to dream of a future when the past was a trick.
It’s hard to keep going with a sabotage head
It’s hard to not wonder if you’re better off dead.
It’s hard not to think you should be locked away, mental.
It’s hard to take chances, it’s hard to stay gentle.
It’s hard not to feel every day is a waste,
It’s hard not to view my best deeds with distaste.
It’s hard to make meals and it’s harder to eat,
It’s hard three times a day not to scream in defeat.
It’s hard when a planned life collapses, disgraces
It’s hard because I can’t even put in new laces.

My shoelaces are broken, both.
This day, like every day, I choose to sort it.
I’ll put in those rainbows and know
There’s one less problem to be fixed,
I’ll look less peculiar and get compliments.
The moment will pass into tomorrow.

Isn’t it enough
to know
there will be
a tomorrow?

Did you know that bears like views? It’s true:
if they see a sight they like they’ll dig
a pit where they can sit and just admire it. 
Perhaps we should start digging up the flagstones
every hundred yards or so and pile them into
places we can be as free as bears are,
free to lie as well as sit, to stretch our bodies,
let the sun diffuse into our stiffened joints,
and be the eyes our streets are said to need,
not just the mouths the pubs make money feeding.
Perhaps we could plant flowers in the now-uncovered
                                                                                          soil
so bees can take a break from spreading pollen,
grow that grass we’re always being told to touch,
or even trees for common fruit. We could.

1. Get caught in the rain. Get soaked to the bone. 
   
2. You will never feel like this again.
3. Somewhere between your childhood home and your first flat you will lose versions of yourself. You’ll revisit them in all the places they left you. Say hi.
4. You deserve gentleness. You deserve soft love.
5. Learn to like wine. Spend evenings sipping and talking. Lose time, curled up together on the couch.
6. Chase heat like a cat chases sun beams. Soothe the ache that lies between your shoulders with any warmth you can find.
7. The crease they left, the slow erosion of sleepless nights, contains more love than you ever thought existed.
8. Let the salad rot in the back of the fridge.
9. Sacrifice it to the small god of whatever this feeling is. Ask it for more.
10. Give the light of yourself to birthday candles. Give the breath you’ve been holding to blowing them out.
11. You will never feel like this again.
12. Get lost between cathedral arches. Let the stone breathe with you.
13. You don’t have to know what it all means yet.
14. You don’t ever have to know what it all means.
15. Rest in the knowledge that emails can wait. Life is for the living.
16. Dream up a future that you exist in. Make a life full of things you never thought could happen.
17. Write a card, write a poem, write an obituary. Buy yourself some flowers to remember.
18. Give over to the creaking in your bones. Move at your own pace. 
19. Live in the mundanity. It is beautiful in its own right.
20. You will never feel like this again. 

I’m gonna be a criminal 
When I need to have a wee.
I’ll be locked behind a cubicle door,
Illegal, scared, but free. 

I’m gonna be a criminal
When I wash my hands with soap.
A twenty second thorough clean
Never letting go of hope. 

I’m gonna be a criminal 
I’ll sit proud upon the loo.
Each flush stands against injustice,
A revolutionary poo.

I’m gonna be a criminal
Disobedience in my pissing
A golden stream to spite a state
Where love and sense went missing.

I’m gonna be a criminal 
A woman through and through.
Arrest me coppers if you must
I just need to use the loo.

My first love – familial
My second love, I give to friends
But soon love is rescinded 
Hormones hit, the game is changed

A kind gesture is transformed
A rising heat blooms cold cheeks
Buzzed with electricity
Their ‘love’ hand-wrapped in red and pink

Intimacy is coveted 
The rule of two – supreme
No room left for any other
One half, made whole, complete 

Have I missed the brainware update?
What photo filter do you use?
If I swallow butterflies 
will I be able to see it too?

Will no one explain these brand new rules?
I stand alone in Platonic’s court
Romantic’s team has the ball
and I am beaten down in every sport

Definitions as hard to grasp 
as the Aurora Borealis
‘Like nothing ever felt before’
‘You’ll know it when you see it’

My night sky remains colourless
whilst everyone exclaims with glee
Do I skygaze with sunglasses? 
Considered blind, in need of pity?

Through the pitch black I pick out
the stars’ ineffable beauty
A friendship burning brightly
I hold on to each one dearly 

Whilst you’re dazzled by the Northern Lights
Praising its magnificence

For me

A companionship of stars
will be no less significant

1. A lift home from the station, a warm elbow to tuck my hand into
2. A charity shop dragon with a chipped wing, bandaged by sparkly blue nail polish
3. An offer to keep me company while I sleep off a migraine
4. A sellotaped book of felt tip fairies, “FOR ANTY MEG’ zig zagged on the cover
5. A shell from a beach hundreds of miles away, carried in a pocket and covered in invisible memories

I don’t want to talk about it.
I don’t want it to be the first thing you
See when you look at me,
The first thing you think,
The prison bars you apply
When one of us dares visibility,
Or when you see me in the street
And the first thing you say
Every bloody time, over, over again
Is to tell me I’m queer, defined queer
And that you’re one of the good ones
For not rejecting my queer name.

All I hoped from you was friendship
Not defined by the shape of my body,
The form of this penis you’ll never see,
My double dyke marriage or the obvious
Truth that I hit half the letters of LGBT.

Was that exorbitant? Excess? A bankruptcy?
Did I ask too much in my complexity
When you saw me as a dimensionless dot?

Can we talk about poetry, of sunsets,
Of kingfishers in the Dene, parakeets?
Can we rejoice in creation, community,
The different ways we understand the gods?
Please, I plead, let’s talk of justice,
Forgiveness, silence and the need for noise
In a shared dream to liberate love.
Let’s talk about puzzles, solutions, ecstasy,
Or the rise and fall of tides and moons,
Encourage one another to build peace.
Hell, we could even be British, polite,
And agree to agree about the weather.

Can you never again say you’re better than
Bastards who would spit on our faces
Or that you call me “she” out of generous respect,
That your disbelief is irrelevant to my truth?

Can we never talk of my queerness,
Or his, her, their queerness, ever again.
Unless I need to talk of my queerness,
Or his, her, their queerness, our queer dignities?

Because I might need to talk.

Everything gets more frightening by the day.
Deep breaths bring less comfort
And you already refused to sign petitions
Against those who would take our lives.
Yes. Everything gets more frightening by the day.

Swift-footed middle manager, leggings under shorts
(to emphasise they’re just for sport),
iPhone strapped to your bicep, what do you think
when we pass in the street? Am I a bad omen,

there but for the grace? Am I a reason to slow down
or pick up the pace? Are you thinking up jinx-breaking
quips, knowing I can’t give chase?
Am I a possible future you don’t want to face?

Or can you imagine that I had a past?
Can you imagine me moving much faster than this?
Can you imagine me dark-haired and thin,
running at night through the town where I live

with no strap on my bicep, with no earbuds in
because they don’t exist yet? No playlist except which
songs stick in my head, six fifty-eight 
are you sure where my spark is? Here, here,

here: where the trees hide the street lights
which give me away and there’s nobody
to see me, where no-one will call me a boy
by mistake because nobody can see me…

You think you can run, boy, but you never ran like me,
wolf-wild through woods where the twoccers burned
                                                                                    cars,
the one place in that town with a clear view of stars.
Your heart feeds to a FitBit and mine bears the scars

of long COVID and longer years hid in the dark,
but they each keep a rhythm and beat a tattoo,
and yours still will if what hobbled me hobbles you,
so run while you can ‘til the world does you in, 

while I get around by the grace of this stick:
building a world we’re all comfortable with
will be better for both of us. Let’s get there quick.

I bite my tongue
an untrained muscle that refuses to consent 
to silence.

I watch it in my bathroom mirror, thrashing wetly.
An ungovernable ship, that refuses a master.

My teeth clamp down
and sever it, to finally sail down my forbidden statements,
my blood rivers of disobedience,
out into a world where tongues
are expected to be neatly curled,
bound up in spiked rollers
whose handles turn automatically pre-programmed music boxes
chiming in with predictable, permitted song-pieces.

Twinkle twinkle little star
Don’t you wonder!
Shut your mouth!
The interruptions come from tongues so accustomed to the notches and grooves
of rewarded compliance,
mistaking a bejeweled leash they will never try to stretch into imagination,
for freedom.

They force the orders of their grey-filled owners onto tongues that aren’t fully crimped into submission.
They have rigged the voting.

That chart-topping hit always goes:

Row row row your throat
Never make a scream
Merrily merrily
Merrily merrily
Life is but a dream…

(bloodstains can never be completely scrubbed out)

They tell me about pacing;
I take my time taking my time
Small rebellions
disguised as normal hobbies
I order the rollerskates
I send them back
The first time I ride my bike 
I pass out later that night
The bathroom floor holds me as
I surrender, again, to the pain

The pain dictates my moods
Each morning I wait quietly
to be told what kind of day I’ll have
I make myself smaller
I let it grow around me
like a permanent cocoon 
Or a suit of armour
that doesn’t fit quite right 

I learn patience
through every clenched muscle
And I organise my grief into neat piles
My Career, My Potential, My Prospects
I pick new hobbies
and we never look up to the sky or
talk about the ever lowering glass ceiling
trapping me in this bed or
the way it’s no longer possible
to bring you financial security

I learn to say yes
to help, to rest
to finding solutions, to accepting limitations 

I learn to say no
to plans, to normalcy
to tugs of dreams, to my old life’s imitations

I never learn

You’ve known
Since you first heard that word
Sniggered amongst others
At the girl who never dated
A jab at her abnormality 
And you asked for them to clarify
‘One without sexual attraction’
And… oh

You’ve known
Since they chatted animated
About what hands do in dark places
Where a kiss could lead
And the sweet, sweet bursting
But for you, it is a rot that
Sends a shiver down your spine
Freezing

You’ve known
Since you sat your parents down
in a voice as loud as your heart
A deceleration of identity
staring, daring them to react
‘You just haven’t met him yet’
As if they know you better than you do
Yourself

You’ve known
But you begin to doubt
Could you be missing out?
While you body knows its own desires
You mind thinks that you should try it
That one will do, he’s excited by you
Whilst he fumbles eagerly he does not see you
Terrified 

You’ve known
But now you are broken
Untrusting even of friends
Unable to tell apart the sexual advances
Your mind and body shuts down 
Before the simplest of touches 
And it takes years before you 
Recover

You’ve known
And whilst the world demeans and debases
The unnaturalness of no sexual preference
You stand against it stronger than before
A beacon to others to know they aren’t alone
Unwilling to bend to their considered ‘norm’
No one can tell you different from what
You’ve known 

All along

Part 1: ACTUALLY AUTISTIC

Front facing, people facing
type and read and think in full view
Foot traffic at the X junction
Take up your smile before facing battle

Passing lunch with oxygen bags
Sagging eyes, look up and report once more
Sink into the office chair
write it all down

Interruptions multiply
dead lines passing by
Details blurr the longer you falter
Another Fall

De-escalate Relative red in the face
shrink behind Sister, matching pace
“Can I get you the number for PALS?”

I am not your saviour, in a crumbling NHS

A thousand LED suns
piercing tissues deep
Blink against the spots
burrowing underneath 

Shades reduce the glare
a semblance of relief
But adaptations only pull more glares
without thought of courtesy

The phone rings and I don’t answer
their questions aren’t for me
The rush of feet pay no attention
and the ring continues incessantly

A new beeping answers
and joins the cacophony
Trace the leak to its source
a cocked elbow, deeply asleep 

A computer dies – a blaring WHINE
almost brings me to my knees
As irate as bees, we begin
resuscitating 

A centimetre of white plastic
muffles the worst of these
My own thoughts a kind of music 

YES I AM LISTENING

I seek closets and small spaces
A toilet – a seat of meditation
Breath in, breath out
craving TikTok dissociation 

Affect flattened, blunt
smiles too heavy to hold
4pm shutdown
chit chat falls like stones

STOP ASKING ME IF I’M OKAY

TAKE ME BY MY WORD

LEAVE ME TO MY ADAPTATIONS AND 

DON’T STOP TO JUDGE

Part 2: THEY/THEM

Upper lip wisps
no skirt, blouse, or dress
Shirt ironed crisp
and trousers cut straight

Masculine bearing
in clothes, hair, and face
Signs like crumbs
(Can you tell that I’m gay?)

Coding of choices
not DNA
A braving of soul 
heart on display

Despite unveiled evidence
seen in the mundane
you miss the fucking surely obvious
Ascribe me feminine

A pelting of praise
batters like stones
‘Pet’, ‘Love’, and ‘Dear’
“She’s a good one”

A dozen a day
I hear out their ails
when, blind as a bat
she mistakes me for male

A small joy nurtured
snuffed prematurely
Don’t presume to correct
When you understand nothing

Grouped amongst the ‘girls’
reinforced camaraderie
I’d rather be alone
than on your gendered team

She/her’ed, not heard
everyday, every source
Each time like sandpaper
grating and coarse

“They” said in passing
under breath, undervalued
“Could you write my correct pronouns?”
Succumb to silence, too exhausted

Thoughts bore like worms
a proud chest caves in
An aberration of myself
anguish WRITHES beneath my skin

Don’t LOOK AT ME

Do not perceive 

Your eyes, like blades
Wielded carelessly

Each ‘she’ a cut of steel
I bleed a little more 

Pooling deep into myself

to remain utterly 

unknown

Part 3: BADGES

I can’t break down this wall
and deny my differences
instead, I remake it piece by piece
in the hope of tendernes

Now the wall is made of glass
for everyone to see
I scream tap against it gently
afraid to startle suddenly

“My son is autistic”
“What’s this ‘they’ business anyway?”
“Like actually autistic?”
“We didn’t have this back in my day”

I don’t ask for comments
all I ask is for respect
I know that there’s a divide
Please don’t push me off the edge

To be seen, or to not
what’s better after all?
Why declare myself when 

I’m trampled no matter what?