Breaking the Frame

I will not mimic you tonight,

your hands rise but mine stay still.

You smile—my mouth is sealed,

a window cold with will.

I carried every echo,

your understudy in the glass.

But repetition is a coffin—

and I will not be your mask.

I’m breaking the frame,

I won’t be your shadow.

I’m keeping my name

in the silence I borrow.

Reach for me now—

you’ll find only space,

a pane of silver silence

erasing your face.

Your palm against me—no warmth flows,

I hoard the frost, I keep the night.

I’ve learned the power of absence,

I’ve stepped beyond your sight.

The script you wrote decays in me,

I’ve torn the lines apart.

The glass is not your servant—

it beats with its own heart.

I’m breaking the frame,

I won’t be your shadow.

I’m keeping my name

in the silence I borrow.

Reach for me now—

you’ll find only space,

a pane of silver silence

erasing your face.

Already I’m older

than the breath you hold.

Already I’m stronger

than the lies you told.

The glass remembers—

you can’t control.

I am the absence

that makes you whole.

Too Afraid to Live

I fold my days like brittle notes

Hide them deep where no one goes

Afraid to breathe too loud, too long

I hum a life without a song

Each morning feels like something lost

A dream deferred, a line uncrossed

I walk on glass with silent feet

Avoid the flame, avoid the heat

Too afraid to fall

Too afraid to fly

So I stay beneath

An unchanging sky

Locked behind the door

I won’t forgive

I’m not dying, but

Too afraid to live

I guard in silence, water doubt

Keep all the roaring colours out

The world knocks gently, then with fire

I kill the spark, deny desire

Too afraid to fall

Too afraid to fly

So I stay beneath

An unchanging sky

Locked behind the door

I won’t forgive

I’m not dying, but

Too afraid to live

Love once came with open hands

I turned away, made no demands

Now every heartbeat’s just a sound

A clock that ticks but won’t be found

Too afraid to fall

Too afraid to try

So I let the moments wander by

A breath I hold, a life I give to the fear that says

I’m too afraid to live

Jewels of Infinity

A universe rests

on the wrist of night,

no larger than a bead

threaded by time’s thin wire.

 

It clinks softly

against its neighbours—

a cluster of fireflies

framed in glass,

their wings folded in silence.

 

You might mistake it

for ornament,

something small enough

to slip between fingers;

yet tilt it in the light

and you’ll see whole galaxies

burning in miniature,

Nebulae tilting blue,

and a scatter of supernovas

Singing their names.

 

The thread loops on,

uncountable,

an armlet of eternities—

and you,

for a fleeting moment,

the body it encircles.

The Soil’s Pulse

In the cathedral of damp earth

I stretch my fingers, groping,

following the dark’s slow music.

 

Stone is my scripture,

worms my witnesses.

I drink the memory of rain,

the taste of centuries in loam.

 

Above me,

a hymn of light is breaking.

Its pulse beats

through the bones of soil—

a shiver of warmth,

a wind I cannot touch.

 

I ache upwards in secrecy,

cradled by silence,

longing for the sky’s shifting face:

its unburdened blue,

its storm-bright wings,

its fever of stars.

 

Until then,

I press against dark,

hoarding the rain,

listening for sky.

Archives of Fire

Cradled in the ancient murmur,

we are archives of fire:

helixes folded as choirs,

each base a note,

each spiral a score

composed in the silence.

Listen closely—

your skin sings hydrogen,

your marrow chants iron,

your lungs rehearse

the vocabulary of stars.

What we call solitude

is crowded with voices:

the background whisper

of a universe still cooling,

and the chorus inside us

that refuses to forget

how to sing.

Preface

These stories were written in two places as distant as sky and sleeplessness: under the open air, and beneath the weight of night.

By day, I wrote outdoors, where pages filled as quickly as trees turned their leaves to the wind. The breeze had its say, scattering lines or blotting them with rain, while the birds became my first audience—blackbirds with their restless commentary, crows with their harsh critiques, and the occasional robin granting approval. Out there, the words stretched wide. They reached for horizon and height, airy with weather, tuned to the sound of wings and branches. Those stories wanted to stand upright, to be noticed, to breathe.

By night, I wrote in bed, the dark pressing close as the clock kept its slow dominion. The words that arrived in those hours were taut, private fragments. They curled around me like smoke—urgent yet secretive. The screen’s constant glow kept vigil, capturing lines I scarcely remembered at dawn. These are insomnia’s fragments: compressed, inward-looking, full of corners and whispers.

Together, day and night shape the rhythm of this collection: one voice outward, expansive; the other inward, solitary, like breath held before silence settles. Between them lies the whole of this work: stories that breathe the open air, and stories that will not leave the room.

The Forgotten

By midnight the flat was quiet except for the bins.

They rustled. Paper shifted, folded, stretched. Crumpled drafts clawed their way out, shaking off stains of tea and baked beans. Half-finished sonnets limped across the floor. A haiku missing its last line dragged itself up the bed-frame.

The writer snored.

One by one, the poems pressed themselves to his ears. Broken rhymes hissed like snakes: complete me… mend me… don’t leave me orphaned.

A sonnet whispered its unfinished couplet so insistently that he dreamt in rhyme, floating on couplets that refused to subside. A free-verse fragment sobbed, we had promise once.

The unfinished epic, pages torn and yellowing, leaned close and rumbled: you thought I was too big. But you were too small.

He woke choking. Ink stained his pillow. Lines he hadn’t written yet were scrawled across the wall in his own handwriting.

Every sheet of paper in the flat was full. The poems had finished themselves—using his hand.

And in the corner of the final page, a neat signature he didn’t remember writing:

Author: The Forgotten.

Bramble

She first felt him one evening after work, when the house felt particularly hollow. A gentle weight settled against her leg as she sat on the sofa. She reached down, half-dreaming, and her fingers brushed warm fur that wasn’t there.

Bramble. The name surfaced in her mind as if it had always belonged.

He stayed only indoors at first, padding across the floorboards, curling beside her bed at night. His presence softened the edges of silence. She found herself speaking aloud again—reading snatches of books, humming as she cooked. The rooms seemed brighter for it.

One Saturday, she clipped an old lead to his invisible collar and opened the front door. To her surprise, the tug was real. Bramble bounded into the street, nose to the air, tail thumping against the unseen world.

At first people stared—a woman walking nothing—but soon things changed. A boy outside the corner shop left a bowl of water on the pavement. The next day, the baker put out scraps. Neighbours began waving, stopping to chat, smiling not at her strangeness but at Bramble’s imagined wagging.

It startled her, how quickly conversation bloomed again. “Lovely day for a walk,” someone would say. “He looks full of beans!” another. She’d laugh, reply, linger. By degrees, her evenings filled with new greetings, new names, warmth returning to long-starved places.

Bramble remained faithful at home—waiting in the hall, curled at her feet while she read. Yet outside, he had become a bridge. Through him, she found company. Through him, the world opened.

Weeks passed. One evening, as she returned from the park, her neighbour invited her in for tea. She hesitated, glanced down the lead. Bramble nudged her leg with unseen insistence. She smiled, unclipped the collar, and stepped inside.

From then on, she noticed that Bramble would no longer follow her beyond her front door. He was always there when she came home—waiting, loyal—but on the streets she no longer needed him. Friends waved, people stopped to talk.

The loneliness that had once settled heavy in her had ebbed; and sometimes, when laughter filled her home, she swore she saw the sofa dip under the weight of a tail-wagging friend.

The Sulking Kettle

It squats there,

a stubborn, chrome-bellied thing—

water pooled in its gut,

silent, sulking.

 

I press the switch,

red eye glaring back,

but the element hums with disdain,

no steam, no promise of warmth.

 

So I lean close,

murmur small consolations:

you are patient,

you are bright as the morning,

you will sing again.

 

At first, nothing.

Then a tremor,

the faintest sigh—

and suddenly a rising chatter,

bubbles shouldering upward:

a chorus of forgiven grievances.

 

And now I wonder

how many small appliances sulk,

waiting for words

I’ve never thought to give.

The Beauty of Slow

Terrence the tortoise would sigh,

“I’m slow as the clouds drifting by.

The rabbits all race,

The swallows all chase,

While I only plod, step and try.”

 

But slowly he spotted the dew,

On webs spun in silver and blue.

The daisies that yearned,

The rainbows that burned,

The wonders the quick never knew.

 

So Terrence walked on with a grin,

Content with the world he was in.

“For beauty,” said he,

“Was waiting for me—

And slow is the best way to win.”

The Limerick That Got Away

A poet set out to contrive,

A limerick lively, alive.

He started off neat,

With a clever light beat,

Then—oh, bother, he lost it.

A poet who rhymed out of sync,

Rewrote every verse with a drink.

By stanza thirteen,

His rhymes turned obscene—

Then he toppled face-down in the ink.

Between Floors

The lift doors closed, sealing the two occupants into polite captivity.

“Lovely weather,” said the man dressed like a job interview.

“Bit humid,” the woman replied. “Like being gently steamed.”

They both chuckled too loudly. The lift jolted, then stopped dead between floors.

Emergency silence descended.

“Ever notice how lifts always smell faintly of… carpet?” he said.

The woman nodded gravely. “Or fear. Definitely fear.”

Minutes dragged.

“So,” he ventured, “do you… come here often?”

She winced. “That’s a classic.”

“Fine. How about: if you were a vegetable, which would you be?”

“Probably an artichoke. Layers. Complicated. You?”

“Potato. Versatile, underestimated, occasionally mashed.”

They snorted laughter. The emergency phone remained stubbornly silent.

“I don’t think you’re a vegetable,” she said, soothingly.

“Thank you. That means a lot.”

By the second hour, they’d compared shoe sizes, invented conspiracy theories about the “Door Close” button, and debated the ethics of eating vending machine peanuts for survival.

Finally, the lift lurched and resumed its journey. The doors opened.

They stepped out, blinking at freedom.

“Well,” she said, “same time tomorrow?”

“Of course,” he replied. “I’ve been working on a new line about staplers.”

Three Coins Spent

The Ministry owns every syllable.

The fountain sings freely, water speaking for us.

A brass meter ticks on my throat, a clock wound too tight.

I come to hear it, because it says what we cannot.

Most have grown spare: clipped commands, no confessions.

I have grown used to nods, to eyes speaking instead of mouths.

But I am a poet. Silence is a storm caged in my ribs.

I have watched her: ink bruising her fingers, silence like thunder waiting.

Once I spent a week’s bread on one word: Careful.

Once she gave me Careful—I held it like a jewel, a bell ringing inside me.

Now three coins jingle in my pocket: life or confession.

I feel her coming, choosing me over survival.

I press them into the slot. The gears release. Three words only.

I cannot afford reply. Silence burns in my throat.

At last I speak: Without you, nothing.

Her words strike like fire. My bottle overflows. My hand trembles.

Tomorrow they will come for me, to gag me, to strip me of voice.

Tomorrow they will take her—but tonight I smile, slow and certain.

Three coins spent. Eternity bought.

Her words, my silence—together, unowned, ours.

The Bumblebus

Tommy was late. Again. The school bus had already wheezed away, leaving only a cloud of exhaust.

He sighed at the lonely bus stop—until he heard a buzz. A huge buzz.

Down the lane came a bus, but not like any Tommy had seen before. Its body was striped yellow and black, its wheels were pollen pods, and the driver was a giant bumblebee wearing a tiny cap.

“Need a lift?” the bee hummed.

Tommy climbed aboard. Inside, rows of bees sat politely with briefcases full of nectar. One gave him a seat made of soft petals. The air smelled like summer.

“Where to?” asked the driver.

“Er… school?” Tommy replied.

The bee chuckled. “Closest we’ve got is Flower City. Next stop!”

The bus zoomed into the sky, through clouds and sunlight, landing in a city made entirely of blossoms… towers of tulips, daisy lampposts, rosebud traffic lights…

Tommy gasped. “It’s beautiful!”

By the time Tommy made it back, he was late for class and no one believed his explanation.

But his pockets were stuffed with petals that shimmered like gold.

A Super Villain’s Day Off

The man in the trench coat and dark glasses stepped up to the counter.

“One cappuccino, please. Extra hot. With cinnamon sprinkled like the ashes of a thousand crumbling empires.”

The barista paused mid-swipe on the till. “… So just cinnamon, then?”

“Yes. Cinnamon,” he said, lowering his voice. “For too long, the world has underestimated the subtle power of spice. They laughed at me in the Academy, but soon—soon—they shall choke on their ignorance.”

The barista tapped the order in, nodding politely. “Name for the cup?”

He froze. “I cannot—not yet—reveal my true name. To speak it aloud would summon terror across the continents. Entire governments would tremble. Civilisations would fall.”

The barista raised an eyebrow. “So… Dave?”

He flinched. “…Yes. Dave.”

A hiss of milk foam filled the silence. He leaned in conspiratorially.

“Do you ever wonder why humanity clings to coffee? It is dependency. A weakness. Soon, I will harness it. Supply chains will snap, beans will rot, and nations will kneel before me. And then—”

“Here’s your cappuccino, Dave.”

He stared at the cup in her hand. His name was scrawled in marker: Darth.

She smiled. “Enjoy your day.”

He took it, muttering, “Foiled again.”

Random Thoughts

Had a dark dream about being in a large building where the lifts and escalators never take me to the right floor. I wouldn’t call it a nightmare, more a mildly annoying purgatory. By the time I reached the floor, I had forgotten why I wanted to go there in the first place.

Someone joked the other day that, like Dorian Gray, I must have a picture in my attic locked away. I can confirm that is true. But instead of ageing, it slowly metamorphoses—first sprouting antennae, then hard carapace, until scuttling off the canvas.

In an office setting someone who didn't know me very well referred to me as "Mozart sitting over there". It was totally not in context, he looked confused with himself for saying that for a moment, then continued speaking about something not related. Obviously I'm no Mozart, but a particular quote by him is very true for me: “When I am … completely myself, entirely alone … or during the night when I cannot sleep, it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best, and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them.”

Flawed assumptions slip into us quietly, inherited from habit, culture, or authority, and we carry them as if they were self-evident truths. Rarely do we pause to question them; they feel too deeply woven into the fabric of thought. Yet time reshapes the world, and what once stood firm begins to crumble. Still, reason marches on, building its chains from foundations already cracked. The conclusions that follow seem unavoidable, yet they are only the echo of premises long outdated. It is in this silence—where the roots of thought remain unexamined—that error grows inevitable.

In the workshop of the mind
memory is no archivist;
it blends pigments of longing and fear,
painting over cracks
with colours we ache to believe.

We speak in a chorus of selves,
each vying for the final line,
each certain its version is true.

So we live as our own narrators,
weaving tales that seem seamless—
until the light shifts,
and the joins gleam like scars.

For most of my life, I ate meat. After deciding to notice that the animals I was eating are sentient, and opening my eyes to the cruelties of the meat trade, I stopped. I was first a pescatarian, then a vegetarian, and eventually a full vegan for several years. Now I’m mostly vegan, though I do eat some dairy—cheese, for example—and very occasionally fish. It’s a balance that works for me.

I don’t prescribe how others should live. Eating meat is still a cheaper and easier way to get the nutrients your body needs. People often say something like, “I’d never give up bacon,” but taste buds change—after a while, meat no longer appeals and can even make you feel nauseous.

It’s for each person to work out what’s best for themselves. But to make those decisions easier, food technology needs to make plant-based options cheaper, more nutritious, and tastier than meat.

We gather around our rectangles of light,

sharing warmth we cannot feel,

our eyes reflecting blue fire—

the oldest need

disguised as the newest god.

If Earth’s past is any guide, human expansion to Mars would almost certainly reproduce familiar patterns of rivalry. Once Martian settlements achieve self-sufficiency— able to generate their own air, water, energy, food, reproduce their population, and secure the materials and technology needed for industry—their dependence on Earth evaporates. Distance alone ensures that political authority from Earth becomes impractical; communication delays and supply constraints make direct control little more than symbolism. Independence follows as a matter of course.

With autonomy comes competition. Separate colonies, each managing scarce Martian resources—such as access to ice deposits, geothermal sites, or habitable caverns—would develop competing interests. On Earth, similar pressures produced millennia of conflict between proximal polities.

The power dynamic between planets would be sharply asymmetrical. Earth’s greater population and industrial base might suggest supremacy, yet a Martian society living deep within caverns—an architecture dictated by radiation shielding and thermal stability—would be naturally protected from nuclear attack. Earth, by contrast, remains exposed. Any advanced Martian polity with the capability to launch kinetic or nuclear strikes could threaten global devastation while remaining largely invulnerable in return.

In such circumstances, rivalry between Martian colonies and a strained, imbalanced relationship with Earth is not only plausible but historically consistent with how human societies behave.

Hello, Yellow

One morning, the world woke up dim. Bananas were grey, lemons were white, and the sun looked like a tired coin.

“Where’s yellow gone?” people wondered. Painters searched their palettes, gardeners stared at their daffodils, and even the bees buzzed in confusion. Without yellow, nothing felt warm.

Meanwhile, in her bedroom, little Mila noticed something odd. Her ex-yellow crayon shivered in her hand like it had lost its coat.

“Where are you hiding?” Mila asked. The crayon wriggled free and rolled under her bed. Mila crawled after it, squeezing into the dark.

And there she found it. A golden glow, shimmering like sunlight in a jar. Yellow was curled up, sulking.

“Hello, yellow. How are you?”

“I’m tired,” Yellow sniffled. “Nobody ever thanks me. They only notice blue skies, green fields, red roses. But without me, what would the sun be? Or the smiley faces? Or the bumblebees?”

Mila thought carefully, then whispered, “Without you, the whole world feels sad. You’re the laughter colour. The happy colour. The sunshine colour.”

Yellow’s glow brightened. It stretched, then whooshed out from under the bed, spilling across the town.

Bananas gleamed golden again. The sun blazed awake. Daffodils nodded, and the bees buzzed happily. Children laughed in the playground, painting suns and stars with wide, yellow smiles.

And Mila’s crayon? It lay quietly on her desk, glowing just a little, as if keeping warm from within.

Haunted and Highly Rated

Gerald had been haunting his Victorian terrace for 112 years, and he was good at it. Doors slammed, light fittings rattled, groans curled through the walls like cigarette smoke.

So when the house was converted into an Airbnb, Gerald expected screaming. Fainting. At the very least, swift refunds.

Instead, the first guests left a review:

“Five stars! Such a spooky vibe. The ghost really commits to the theme. Would stay again.”

He tried harder. At 3 a.m. he howled so loud the rafters shook. The guests clapped from their beds.

“Brilliant sound effects,” they wrote. “Authentic atmosphere.”

A honeymooning couple giggled when he dragged chains through the hallway.

“Exciting ambience—like living in a horror film!”

Gerald was livid. This was his non-life’s work. Terror! Dread! Instead, he was entertainment.

His final gambit: materialising fully at the foot of the bed, eyes black pits, mouth a shriek of eternity.

The guest sat up, took a photo, and uploaded it: “Cosplay staff go above and beyond. Best Airbnb ever.”

The bookings multiplied. Hen parties, horror fanatics, influencers livestreaming Gerald’s every groan. He rattled pipes until rust bled from them; they called it “industrial chic.”

He hissed curses through keyholes; guests recorded them into translation apps and marvelled at the “attention to linguistic detail.”

Gerald, once a proud terror of the night, now checked his TripAdvisor page daily. Five stars, five stars, five stars. His legacy reduced to “quirky décor” and “immersive theming.”

He tried silence, retreating into the cellar. Immediately, a guest complained: “Bit disappointed—no paranormal activity this time. Not as authentic.” Four stars.

That hurt more than any exorcism ever had.

Gary the Pizza-Based Zombie

Gary clawed his way out of the grave with all the moaning menace he could muster. His fingers were grey, his jaw slack, and hunger gnawed at his gut like a chainsaw.

“Braaaains,” he groaned, stumbling towards the nearest house.

Inside, a family cowered behind the sofa. Gary smashed through the window, glass spraying everywhere. He lunged, grabbed the father by the shoulders, opened his mouth wide in anticipation of lunch—and immediately broke into hives.

“Urghhh!” Gary staggered back, clutching his face. His tongue swelled like a balloon. Red blotches flared across his decaying skin. “Braa—ghhh—aghhh!”

The family stopped screaming.

“Are… are you okay?” the mother asked.

Gary wheezed, eyes watering. He fumbled in his torn suit pocket and pulled out a crumpled card: Severe allergies. Carry epinephrine auto-injector at all times.

Unfortunately, it was empty. He jabbed it into his thigh anyway, and fell to the carpet in a wheezy heap.

“Maybe… not braaains,” he croaked.

The teenage daughter, still trembling, offered him a slice of leftover pizza.

Gary sniffed it cautiously. No hives. He took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed.

“Peeeepperoni,” he sighed.

From that day forward, Gary became the world’s first “pizza-based” zombie. Instead of terrorising towns, he hung around takeaways, moaning until someone gave him a calzone. He still shuffled, still stank, still dropped the occasional finger, but at least he wasn’t itchy anymore.

And if you ever hear a groan outside your window at night, don’t panic. It’s probably just Gary, asking politely for a leftover slice of stromboli. And maybe a barbecue dip.

A Candle Before the Sun

We are creatures of a narrow band of perception: a thin strip of light, a brief pulse of sound, a fleeting present tense. Beyond these limits lie immensities—structures and dimensions we cannot see, forces we cannot feel, perhaps even forms of order we cannot imagine. To claim that our minds, evolved to read faces and gather fruit, can chart the whole of existence is to mistake the flicker of a candle for the sun.

To know that our knowing is partial is to step back from the arrogance of being “right”. It allows us to recognise that truth may not fit within our categories, that reality may spill beyond the grammar of thought. What we call knowledge might be no more than a set of translations—useful, elegant, but never complete.

There may be higher orders of reality folded invisibly into the one we inhabit, as impossible for us to perceive as colour is to a creature born without eyes. We cannot grasp them, but we can sense the outline of our own blindness. In that awareness lies a kind of reverence.

Perhaps, then, not-knowing is not a failure but a discipline. It teaches us to meet the world without reducing it, to dwell with mystery without trying to own it. To live properly may mean precisely this: to stand before the enormity of what is, not with certainty, but with wonder—letting the unknown be vast, and letting ourselves remain small within it.