Posted in #NaPoWriMo, Writing

NaPoWriMo 2026 – Day 21/30

It started with a Charlie, girl
You will not be a fly on the wall
Take those wings to the summer sky
Wrap your dreams around the world.

Little red wellies made Chuggles
Daddy’s lifelong partner in crime
Watching from the country garden
Cycling through Surrey’s autumn hills.

The seasons turned and so did Chum
A dog food brand, a word for friend
My little brother named me once
And either way, I loved the sound.

The land down under gave me Chaz
Where it is too hot for syllables
And cultural expectations
It felt very early-noughties cool.

Graduation christened me Charles
Pulling me back toward the patriarchy
Having to prove my own first name
Those small corrections left their scars.

Today the Teams chat calls me CA
An office joke between colleagues
Who speak in acronyms all day
A little goodbye: see ya, CA.

But what began as sibling teasing
Became the name my people use
The one that stayed, the one that softened
I will always be, Always Chum.

Posted in Writing

NaPoWriMo – Day 21 – Courage

Stop saying ‘my understanding is’
be active and straight with your words
Stop second guessing your position
say what you need to say, be heard.
I’m not going to be here.
I’m not going to answer.
I’m not sitting around waiting
I’m dancing like a sunflower.
Courage is not the absence of fear…
Posted in Writing

NaPoWriMo – Day 19 – Monsters

Aged council houses in the Home Counties
backed onto deep dark historic woodlands
haunted by castle ruins and shelters
brought to life by village children.
At the end of the short cul-de-sac
a long footpath disappeared with the night
mothers shouted curfew bells at sunset
and demanded a return to the light.
Do not go into the woods after dark.
Not a step beyond the street light shadow.
Across the line the boogey man will wait
for naughty children who never listen.
Do not go into the woods after dark.
The flickering shadows are not your friends.
The boogey man will come, wait and see
and you’ll wish you had just listened to me.
Fast forward to the turn of the century
this village child became a teenager
where adventures went beyond the woodland
but never beyond the path after dark.
Because the boogey man could be waiting.
Posted in Writing

NaPoWriMo – Day 18 – ABC Predicted Text

And I wrote you a playlist of
Bob Ross’ voice, more serene than
Coastal lakes lining mountains.
Did I get the right vibe?

Even if we are not leaving
For the next year or so
Google drive through the same day
How down the hill did we fall?

Is it this time of Autumn?
Just an in between of seasons.
Know how to get the old boys back
Like those immortal 90s shows.

My phone died like a car crash
Not sure what happened but it
Ordered a few more days to
Park in the present, oi vey.

Question? We have to go ahead
Rest and breathe for tomorrow
See I will miss the next dream
That you planned without me.

Until it’s like a normal
Video of you and me
What do you want to do?
X-ray the situation?

Yeah I’m not sure about road trips.
Zaddy, I’m writing to you.
Posted in Writing

NaPoWriMo – Day 14 – Parody

Let me count the ways I’m not into you
You have enough red flags to line a street
But my heart does not care what maybe true
she fantasies about the day we’ll meet.
Why do you have to be agreeable?
You’re like a puppy waiting to be fed
love and worth. It is unbelievable
that I cannot get you out of my head.
But, in the moment my phone starts chirping
lightening sparks my fingertips and I type
my heart hangs from words that keep it racing
while my brain doesn’t understand the hype.
In the moment, my heart is into you
But in the morning, I’m over it. True.

Inspired by Shakespeare’s Sonnet 141 and one of my fav rom-coms 10 Things I Hate About You.

Posted in Writing

NaPoWriMo – Day 12 – Poem

Where the voice in my head connects to pen
Onions of feelings turn into scribble
Reaching to pieces I need to question
Deconstructing a veteran riddle.

Pour me a glass of the finest whiskey.
Oblige me to a bottle of cheese and wine.
Endeavour to bring mental liberty.
Mend the broken quatrains that jail my mind.

But, a poem is more than verse or song
Like the tide it changes with differing eyes
Understand it’s not something to get wrong
Each one has a way of seeing the sky.

Be the message you want to tell the earth
Excite, amaze, and know your worth.
Posted in Writing

NaPoWriMo – Day 2 – Surreal

Grey haunting fog.

Stepping forward, from
shadow selves.

A flute echoes across the sky
stirring the dark and twisted
sounds of thunderous clouds
echoes the rushing rivers
meandering down the hill.

Angels favour the brave.
The oaks stand tall in the woods
battered and bruised
at the mercy of Zeus.

I am a wedge of cranberry cheese.
Posted in Writing

That old man

Alone upon the mountainside
Our hero hid and cowered
Born of Dickensian yuletide
He persona was rather dour.
His sandy hair was stiff as straw
His hat feeble and frail
His feet cemented to the floor
cold on his mountainside jail.
Glaring down into the valley
He chided his creators
Captivated infinitely
Upon a sea of haters.
Alone upon the mountainside
Our hero watched and wondered
Weathered, beaten, and cockeyed
What life had he plundered?

Posted in #NaPoWriMo2017, Writing

NaPoWriMo 2017 8/30 – Tea Cup

There’s a teacup under my bed.

I bought it on a damp high street,
when the days smiled
and our light repelled
oncoming clouds.

You said I was weird.

So when summer ribbons
were moth-eaten
and flowers faded away,
that little teacup stayed.

It watched from the basket,
when lovely red sandles
were discarded,
onto your thick head.

And the purple pen you gave me,
the ink had run
dead.

I love that little teacup,
that sleeps under my bed.