Raven

I became a mother

not in the way little girls dream of,

not wrapped in certainty

or held safely inside forever promises.

I became a mother quietly —

with trembling hands,

with hope stitched beside fear,

with a heart already learning

how to survive disappointment.

When my first daughter was born,

the world softened around the edges.

Her tiny fingers curled around mine

like she already knew

I needed saving too.

For a while, we tried to build a family

from uneven pieces.

Some days felt almost whole.

Other days, I watched the door more than I watched the clock,

waiting for a man

who could never quite stay still long enough

to become a home.

When life became heavy,

he disappeared into the night

while I stayed awake nursing fevers,

warming bottles,

rocking our baby against my chest

as exhaustion settled into my bones.

And when another heartbeat began to grow inside me,

he chose escape

while I chose love.

I chose two daughters.

Two tiny souls

who deserved softness in a world

that had not always been soft with me.

So I gave them everything I had.

Matching dresses bought with careful coins.

Picnic blankets beneath the old tree in the park.

Summer afternoons filled with laughter

so loud it drowned out every fear.

There were hard days too.

Days the cupboards looked bare.

Days I fed them first

and told myself I wasn’t hungry anyway.

I made mistakes along the way.

Opened my heart to people

who never deserved a seat at our table.

Trusted voices that spoke over mine

until I no longer recognised

the sound of my own instincts.

I was a puppet for too many years,

pulled gently, then harshly,

by hands that convinced me

silence was easier than resistance.

And so the truth became tangled.

Now I wear stories about myself

that do not fit my skin.

I hear words that turn my love into something cruel,

as though the woman who stayed awake through sickness,

who carried every burden quietly,

who begged the universe for her children to feel loved —

could somehow be heartless.

But mothers like me

rarely get remembered correctly.

People forget the nights we broke in private.

The tears swallowed before morning.

The strength it took

just to keep showing up smiling

for little girls who deserved sunshine.

Yet through every storm,

I stayed.

Not perfectly.

Not gracefully.

But faithfully.

And now, after years of strings wrapped around my wrists,

I have finally cut them loose.

Not because I stopped loving.

Not because I wanted revenge.

But because I am tired of dancing

to the hands of puppet masters

who never cared how much the strings burned my skin.

So if I must be misunderstood,

let me at least be free.

Because peace, I have learned,

is not always found in proving your innocence.

Sometimes peace

is simply walking away from the stage

while the puppeteers are still demanding another performance.

Winter rested softly against the windows,

turning the world beyond the glass pale and distant.

She stood before the mirror

buttoning trembling fingers through the sleeves of her cardigan,

watching an older woman stare quietly back at her.

How strange, she thought,

to spend an entire lifetime becoming someone.

The mirror had known her in spring once —

when her face was all softness and expectation,

when she believed love would arrive easily,

like sunlight through open curtains.

Back then, she measured life in futures.

A husband.

Children.

A home filled with warmth instead of silence.

She had been so certain

happiness was simply waiting for her somewhere.

But years disappeared strangely.

One became five.

Five became twenty.

The mirror watched her grow smaller inside herself.

Watched apologies settle permanently on her tongue.

Watched her mistake endurance for devotion.

Watched her survive rooms

that slowly emptied the light from her eyes.

And still she stayed.

For peace.

For appearances.

For fear.

For the dangerous hope

that tomorrow might finally become kinder.

Outside, seasons buried each other quietly.

Spring bloomed.

Summer burned.

Autumn withered.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Until one evening, beneath weak winter light,

she looked into the mirror

and saw time at last.

Not in the silver threaded through her hair,

nor the tiredness resting beneath her eyes —

but in all the years

she had spent waiting to live.

The grief of it nearly hollowed her.

Yet life, cruel and merciful all at once,

was not finished with her yet.

Because somehow, impossibly late,

love found her.

Not the feverish kind from stories.

Not grand or reckless.

Just gentle.

A hand reaching for hers in the dark.

A voice asking if she’d slept well.

Laughter returning softly to the house

like something long believed dead.

And for the first time in her life,

she understood how love was supposed to feel:

safe.

Sometimes she caught their reflection together in the mirror —

his tired smile behind her,

her lined face no longer trying to disappear.

For the first time,

she did not mourn the woman looking back at her.

She mourned only the years spent unloved.

Snow fell heavily the night death arrived.

She felt it quietly in her bones,

in the slowing rhythm of her breath,

in the way the fire seemed farther away than before.

But she was no longer afraid.

Because at last,

after a lifetime of surviving,

she had finally been held gently by the world.

She died beside the only man

who had ever taught her

that love should never feel like pain.

And in the mirror across the room,

two aging souls remained together

long after the candlelight disappeared.

There are parts of me

that do not belong to this lifetime.

I have felt it in the quietest moments —

in the moss-dark woods of memory,

in the tremble of candlelight,

in the strange comfort of shadows

that never asked me to explain myself.

Somewhere inside me

lives a woman made of smoke and moonwater,

half-wild,

half-prayer,

with earth beneath her fingernails

and old knowledge sleeping in her bones.

Maybe that is why darkness never frightened me.

It only ever felt familiar.

As a child,

I gathered small living things in careful hands,

walking beside my grandad

through fields breathing with summer.

He taught me softness before the world taught me grief.

Taught me that transformation

is often quiet.

I think my soul has been transforming ever since.

Pain did not arrive like thunder for me.

It arrived later —

years after the wound,

soft-footed and patient,

sitting beside me at three in the morning

when the world finally loosened its grip

and silence became sacred again.

That hour knows me best.

The untouched dark.

The notebooks swollen with unfinished thoughts.

The feeling of being both haunted

and holy at once.

I spent years mistaking solitude for emptiness,

offering my heart to hands

that only knew how to bruise it.

I called chaos love

because it was loud enough to drown out

the sound of my own becoming.

Until tenderness found me gently.

Not like lightning.

Not like fire.

Like somewhere to rest.

And still,

there is something ancient moving through me —

something winged and watchful,

circling above ruined churches and sleeping forests,

drawn to forgotten things,

to black feathers against pale skies,

to the kind of beauty

people misunderstand because it does not beg to be loved.

Perhaps that is what reincarnation is:

not punishment,

not destiny,

but the slow remembering

of every self we have ever buried.

And perhaps peace

is simply learning

that darkness can be soft too.

——— Raven

“I lost years trying to become acceptable before I became myself.”

There was a girl

who mistook survival

for living.

She poured spirits over open wounds

and called it coping,

laughed too loud in crowded rooms

so nobody would hear

the ache beneath her ribs.

Nights stretched like punishment.

Ceilings became confessionals.

She would lie awake asking

why love always arrived

with sharp hands.

She stayed too long.

Always too long.

At tables where her soul went hungry,

in arms that only held her

when she was breaking,

inside promises built from smoke

and temporary affection.

She craved love

the way drowning people crave air,

yet the moment someone reached for her,

fear wrapped itself around her throat.

Terrified of abandonment.

Terrified of being known.

Terrified of forever.

Terrified of herself.

So she became both fire and flood.

Pulling people close

just to push them away

before they could leave first.

And every time she shattered,

she blamed the pieces.

She thought happiness

was hidden inside other people.

Thought the next relationship

would finally be the one

that stayed gentle.

Thought if she gave enough,

bent enough,

bled enough,

someone would choose her completely.

But instead she became

a puppet with tired eyes,

dangling from strings

held by anyone

who promised not to leave.

And from somewhere far away inside herself,

she watched her own destruction

like an audience member

unable to stop the play.

Therapists.

Medication bottles rattling like warnings.

Escapes disguised as comfort.

Anything to silence the memories

for one more night.

She let people drive her life

while she sat quietly in the passenger seat,

staring out the window

as they laughed at how lost she was.

And the cruelest part was this:

she truly believed

she deserved it.

Until one day,

exhaustion became louder than fear.

And she realised

she did not need saving.

Not romance.

Not reassurance.

Not another person promising forever

with crossed fingers behind their back.

She needed herself.

So she stopped drowning her pain

and finally looked it in the eye.

Stopped asking everyone else

who she should be.

Stopped shrinking to fit inside

other people’s comfort.

And when she cut the puppet strings,

it hurt.

Because walking alone

after years of being controlled

feels unfamiliar at first.

Freedom can ache

before it heals.

People called her selfish

for choosing peace.

Called her cold

for refusing chaos.

Called her the villain

because she no longer begged

to be loved badly.

But they only missed

the version of her

that abandoned herself

to keep others comfortable.

And she missed that girl too, sometimes.

The softer one.

The desperate one.

The one who would stay awake

trying to become easier to love.

But not enough to become her again.

Because now

her life is quiet.

Not empty —

quiet.

The kind of quiet

where mornings feel soft again.

Where sleep comes easier

without carrying the weight

of everyone else’s expectations.

She no longer chases people

down roads they already chose to leave on.

No longer loses herself

inside “what if.”

No longer apologises

for taking up space in her own life.

Now happiness arrives

in simple things.

Fresh air through an open window.

Coffee that stays warm long enough to finish.

Music playing while the world slows down.

A peaceful home.

A steady heart.

An evening without tears.

She learned that healing

is not becoming someone new.

It is returning

to the person buried underneath

all the fear,

all the control,

all the voices that taught her

she was hard to love.

And maybe she cannot undo the years

she spent handing herself away.

Maybe some scars

will always remember.

But she knows this now:

She was never the chaos.

She was a wounded soul

trying to survive

in the only ways she knew how.

And look at her now —

still here.

Still standing.

Still learning how beautiful life can be

when her hands are finally

holding the steering wheel.

If I go somewhere when I die,

I don’t want kingdoms in the sky.

No golden gates, no judging eyes,

No suits, no saints, no polished lies.

I think the place I’d wander to

Would feel like old days coming through.

Not heaven bright above the blue —

Just somewhere simple, kind, and true.

A time instead.

A softer place.

Where nobody was hard to face.

When people cared without a show,

And life moved kind and life moved slow.

If heaven has a telephone,

A Nokia 3210 should ring alone.

That little brick that would not break,

With Snake to play when wide awake.

I’d send a text the old-school way,

“Meet by the swings,”

“you out today?”

Short little words that somehow said

More love than paragraphs now spread.

I want a Sony Walkman at my side,

A mixtape clicking as I ride.

Headphones thin as fishing line,

Songs rewound a thousand times.

Play Oasis through the evening air,

Or Blur like somebody still cared.

Let cassettes unravel slow,

And fix them with a pencil roll.

I want those skates that strapped to shoes,

Bright plastic wheels all worn with use.

Racing down the pavement fast,

Like every summer day would last.

I want hopscotch chalked on concrete grey,

And scraped-up knees from all-day play.

The sound of footballs off a wall,

And hearing someone’s mother call

From down the road when tea was done,

While streetlights flickered one by one.

No one checking who had more,

No locked hearts behind a door.

I want to build a blanket den,

And tell old ghost stories again.

Torchlight faces, laughter loud,

Rain tapping softly through the clouds.

I want cans of pop gone warm and flat,

Big coats thrown down in messy stacks.

Saturday mornings half asleep,

Curtains closed and telly weak.

VHS tapes that hiss and blur,

Posters peeling at the corners.

CD wallets packed too tight,

And orange skies at half past night.

No fancy clothes.

No race to win.

No shame for how your house had been.

Just comfort shared in quiet ways,

And time enough for endless days.

Because if there’s a place for me,

I hope it feels like memory.

Before the world got loud and cold,

And everything was bought and sold.

A place where people still turned up,

Sat for hours, talked enough.

Where silence never felt severe,

And everybody felt sincere.

So if I leave, don’t think of gold,

Or marble halls all bright and cold.

Just soft-lit evenings, music low,

And people gathered in the glow.

Not heaven high above the blue.

Just the feeling

of when the world felt human too.

“If you’re telling the lies or willingly believing them, you’re equally responsible for the damage they cause”

There’s a little house beyond the noise,

Far from screens and plastic toys,

Where mornings wake with golden light

And children laugh from dawn till night.

The kettle sings, the fire glows,

Bare feet running, rosy noses,

Tiny hands with wicker baskets

Collect fresh eggs beside the grasses.

The garden bends with honest food,

Not bought to match a changing mood,

But grown by weather, dirt and rain,

By calloused hands and patient pain.

The children learn from streams and skies,

From muddy knees and scraped-up thighs,

Not trapped beneath cold classroom beams

Forgetful of their younger dreams.

No algebra to fill their heads,

No hollow race for daily bread,

No teaching them their worth is tied

To labels stitched along the side.

Instead they learn the truest things:

Why broken birds still try their wings,

How kindness grows when freely sown,

How love can make a house a home.

They learn the weight of honest work,

The dangers shadows sometimes lurk,

That life is hard and skies turn grey,

But hearts survive when shown the way.

The afternoons are wild and free,

With climbing boots and scraped-up knees,

Faces stained with dirt and rain,

Yet not a single soul complains.

No endless scrolls of hollow lives,

No poisoned need to outshine others’ lives,

No blue-lit glow through silent rooms,

No children lost to modern gloom.

Just songs sung loudly, out of tune,

Barefoot dancing beneath the moon,

Old jumpers passed from child to child,

Scuffed wellies and hearts still wild.

And when the day at last grows dim,

The world outside feels cold and grim,

Still in that house the fire burns bright,

A small safe haven in the night.

No riches stacked in polished rows,

No endless want that always grows,

For those who live with love enough

Already hold the richest stuff.

While cities chase their restless schemes

And trade their peace for hollow dreams,

That little home still softly proves

Life’s richest things are simple truths.

——— Raven

“Some storms don’t drown you-they teach you how to breathe again. And once the fog lifts, you realise the world was never against you; it was waiting for you to come back to it.”

“Not everything I write is about me. Sometimes I simply give a voice to feelings people cannot explain.

There once was a woman

who spent most of her life

apologising for surviving.

She made mistakes growing up,

the kind people love to point at

when they’ve never walked through the same fire.

She trusted the wrong people,

opened her heart to those

who saw kindness as weakness

and gentleness as something to exploit.

Some hurt her emotionally.

Some physically.

Some in ways no soul should ever have to endure.

And still, after every heartbreak,

every betrayal, every wound,

she continued searching for love.

Not grand love.

Not perfect love.

Just the kind that held her tightly

and said,

“You’re safe now. Everything will be okay.”

She spent years trying to be good enough.

A good daughter.

A good sister.

A good mother.

And by God, she tried.

Even on the days she was breaking apart inside,

she smiled so nobody would notice the pain.

She carried guilt like it was stitched into her skin,

punishing herself for choices

she could never undo.

But what truly broke her

wasn’t her past.

It was the people

who should have loved her unconditionally.

Family who kept reopening old wounds

just to remind her who she used to be.

People who spoke about her behind closed doors,

who picked apart her happiness

because they were more comfortable

with her struggling than healing.

They wanted her to need them.

Wanted her small.

Ashamed.

Dependent.

Every time she tried to rebuild herself,

they twisted the knife already buried in her heart.

So she stayed quiet for years.

Stayed longer in places she was unloved

because loneliness frightened her less

than feeling unwanted.

But time has a strange way

of waking people up.

One day, she finally saw the truth:

people who love you

do not feed on your pain.

They do not resent your happiness.

They do not make a home

inside your suffering.

And something inside her changed.

The woman who once begged to be loved

started loving herself instead.

Slowly.

Painfully.

Powerfully.

Now she walks differently.

Not because life didn’t scar her,

but because she survived it.

And if loving herself means losing people

who only loved the broken version of her,

then she no longer fears losing them.

Because after everything she endured,

she finally understands something important:

She was never weak for wanting love.

The people who hurt her

were weak for trying to destroy someone

whose heart remained soft

after everything it survived.

——— Raven

“I stopped setting myself on fire just to keep cold hearts warm”

I didn’t walk away because I stopped loving,

I walked away because I loved too deeply.

I gave pieces of myself to people

who only knew how to hold them

when it benefited them.

I used to think family meant safety,

meant loyalty without conditions,

meant names spoken softly in rooms

they weren’t standing in.

Because that’s how I spoke of them.

But somehow, when my back was turned,

I became a villain

in stories I don’t even recognise.

It’s strange how some people

create wounds in others

then cry about the bleeding.

I hear the things said about me.

I always will.

But silence became my survival,

because the world is already cruel enough

without me adding to it.

So now I sit quietly in my own little bubble,

protecting a heart

that once would have walked through fire

for people

who eventually lit the match themselves.

And maybe that’s the hardest lesson of all —

realising not everybody loves

the way I do.

Not everybody sees flaws

and chooses love anyway.

Because I did.

Every single time.

I saw the broken parts in people,

the selfishness, the pride, the hurt,

and I loved them no less for it.

While they searched for cracks in me

like proof I deserved the pain.

But I won’t hold grudges.

I won’t become bitter.

Distance is not hatred.

Silence is not weakness.

It is simply me

finally protecting the part of myself

they kept asking me to sacrifice.

——— Raven

Life is too beautiful

to spend beneath the weather

of somebody else’s storm.

Let them throw stones

from their glass houses,

arms full of judgement,

mouths sharpened by boredom.

The cracks they make

say more about their own walls

than they ever will about mine.

I spent too long

folding pieces of myself smaller,

rounding off the edges,

changing colours to match

rooms I never truly belonged in.

Trying to become

the version of me

that made everyone else comfortable.

But somewhere along the way

I grew tired of apologising

for existing honestly.

Now, I no longer chase acceptance

from people determined

not to understand me.

I no longer beg for seats

at tables where respect

was always conditional.

Instead, I sit quietly

with the ones who love me gently,

the ones who never asked me

to become less

just to belong.

And there is peace in that.

Real peace.

The kind that arrives

when you finally realise

you were never meant

to carry the weight

of other people’s bitterness.

Life is still beautiful.

The sky still softens at dusk.

Music still finds broken places.

Laughter still sounds like healing.

And me?

I’m finally learning

that protecting my peace

is not selfish —

it’s survival.