Featured Poet - Poppy Hulbert

THE HEDGEHOG

There is a hedgehog stuck inside me

I can’t remember eating it

the spines

all seven thousand of them

prick me at once sometimes

and my whole body tenses up

alone, I have no defence 

in the past, I numbed the pain 

but it’s rude to ignore the hedgehog and we ought to communicate

doesn’t mean to attack

its spines are vulnerability 

I would tell it to leave

I’ve tried this and it doesn’t work

the hedgehog has lived here for years

it has something to say to me.

LEGO FLOWERS & LILAC DRAGONS

Lego flowers

I’m powerless

over my addiction.

My inner dictionary

is limited

like a kid

I use simple rhymes

when I write from time to time

there is no real rhythm

no real system

I just spiel and it takes

less than ten minutes to make

something I’m happy with.

The flowers took a while to build

but during this I felt fulfilled

a little inner joy, occupied

a peace of mind

that honestly is rare

fear and scare.

I bought another toy

I called it Ringa, it’s a boy

a dragon

my imagination

makes it feel alive

comfort is helping me survive.

And syringa means lilac in Latin

makes cosy my bed that he’s sat in.

You might call this a regression

the Lego flowers, a cuddly dragon

but I see it as a little comfort, simple joy

this more hopeful voice

is harder to articulate, but it’s a choice

I’ve made to share the hope

having found that poetry flows

from sadness and depression

I now ought to mention

this progress

I ramble and digress:

there is relief in seeing the light

amidst continuing, exhausting, plight.

CARROTS

You refused to turn down the pasta sauce

despite me asking you repeatedly

and now it’s spitting everywhere

and you let it spit and sit behind there

on a stool.

The frantic carrots, the red stains on the fridge

scorching hits your face

and you stare at the pan as though you’re

fascinated by the chaos of it and

all the while, your meal is withering away.

Your nutritious, hearty, wholesome meal

neglected and ruined, by choice!

NOW APPLICABLE

“Hi, I’m Poppy and I’m an addict” – I admit this everyday, and it always hurts

we all say it, everyone in the room. Some people say it with pain and others with joy

we carry heavy bags, deep and littered, grief in our words

for some time, we have used. We have medicated with tools that felt like toys

when are knives. Our ability to handle emotions dissolve

rocks on a spoon. And now the feelings feel like pain and seem to come with

no name. It is our job to name them, to let them rise and exist 

everyday, we repeat the same statements. “Our addiction is a disease;” that is the pith

without NA, addiction leads to “jails, institutions, and death” – together, we all read

some people look enthusiastic, others look burdened, some are slumped over

a few are sobbing, the woman next to me has her legs twisted round – roots on a tree

the lights go out, and we share. 

On my first day of meetings, I went to two, and in between

I chugged a glass of red wine. It hit the spot. I shared about it. The Next Day,

I stopped. Everything. Sharing gets things off your chest. We respond to the readings

people share where they are at – we listen out for similarities rather than differences

it is in listening, relating, reflecting, connecting – this is where 

healing seeps in. 

BEAMS

(About waiting for dopamine to rebalance in my brain)

A room full of beam

-ing smiles

and other feelings

heart sleeves; while

I don’t know a thing

about gymnastics

I do know that it

cannot be fantastic

to keep falling off the beam

this is not interpretive

dance, and you are no team

so is all the expressive

floor work something you mean

to be doing? Why do you

jump

from beam to beam when you

surely must know you will

bump

to the ground. Why do you

move across and not along?

Can’t you just walk

along the beams?

You talk

of the wildest things. Beam

-ing smiles

and other feelings

heart sleeves.

THE FLY

I swatted a fly

and now it is spinning in circles

faster than before.

Injured buzzing, broken wing.

It darts from wall to wall, off kilter

like a drunk.

Dizzy fly, freaked, blind

and so blindingly fearful, you see?

And only someone sick would

swat a fly and leave it half alive

but only someone sick would kill.