Aspen Writes Poetry

  Tic A spark under skin, a bird trapped in the throat, a violin string pulled too tight— then let go. A shoulder shrugs without asking. A word flies loose like shrapnel. You think I’m broken. I think I’m fluent in a language you never tried to learn. You call it strange. I call it being  But he — blue vest, stiff jaw, radio crackle — he calls it  aggression. Non-compliance. A threat. He doesn’t see the twitch, the tremble, the tremor of trying not to be seen. He sees disruption. A reason to tighten the grip. To press me to the ground because I moved wrong. Sounded wrong. Looked  like something he was taught to fear. This body — so full of uninvited music — is not a weapon. But he’s never been taught to hear the difference.

  Inspiring  They mean: thank God it’s not me. They mean: look how you smiled through it — I’d have crumbled. They mean: your life frightens me, so let me drape it in soft gold words I can walk away from. They see your wheelchair, your tic, your slurred word, your stillness or flinch and call it  brave, as if your body were a war you chose to fight in. They say  inspiring when you open a door, buy milk, laugh in the cinema, breathe without asking them first. They do not mean inspiring. They mean: I am uncomfortable, but I’ve been taught to smile at difference if it tries hard enough to be palatable. They mean: stay exceptional. Stay quiet about the cuts, the pain, the rage, the small cruelties we never have to notice. They mean: please let me feel kind without doing anything kind. But you — you wake up. You put on your shoes. You speak. You spill coffee. You kiss someone who loves you. You live. And none of that is for them.

  What I write, raw, gleams—starlight in a jar, But stars die without gravity. So I return. Cut a line. Move a word. Circle the heat until it holds. I do not dim it— I teach it to stand.

Karen in the Clouds  If I had to work the phones for a day— the endless queue of souls with grievances— there’s one complaint I’d refuse to take. The ones who call to say, “Heaven’s too quiet, too perfect, too still.” Who want their angels louder, their harp strings harsher, their clouds less fluffy, their eternity less eternal. Who long for the chaos of living— the noise, the heartbreak, the mess— as if paradise needs a soundtrack to feel less like a prison. I’d put down the receiver, refuse to breathe the complaint back into life, because some wounds are not meant to heal, some longings not meant to settle. And if Heaven is a place of peace— then maybe silence is the loudest answer of all.

Stay It’s not loud, you know. Death. No banging fists, no lightning. Just a knock, like a neighbour asking to borrow sugar. Polite. Almost shy. I’ve heard it, Heard it for weeks now— soft as the hush you’d make when you curled into me on stormy nights, your head small as a teacup in my lap. They think I don’t hear it. They say,  Walk more. Eat less. Sit in the sun. As if light can undo what time has stitched. As if I can outsmile what’s coming. But I don’t tell them, and I didn’t tell you— not yet. Because I saw you dancing in the kitchen, burning the toast, laughing like fire. How could I leave that? Some mornings I lie very still, trying to measure the silence. But then I hear your voice downstairs, and I choose again to stay. You’ll learn, my love— one day. Death doesn’t take you. You let go. And sometimes, you just don’t. Not while someone still needs you to stay.

🧠Tourette Syndrome Awareness 🧠 Today, I want to talk about something often misunderstood: Tourette Syndrome. Imagine being sent out of class, over and over again, because your body made a sound you couldn’t stop — a hiccup that wasn’t a hiccup. A tic that wasn’t a choice. And being told, "Get some water," like that could fix it. Water doesn’t fix Tourette’s. Shame doesn’t fix it. Silence definitely doesn’t. But listening might help. Understanding might help.  Kindness absolutely will help.  I wrotea poem called “Misunderstood” to give voice to this experience — the judgment, the isolation, and the strength it takes just to exist in a world that doesn’t always get it. If you have 2 minutes, read it. If you have 5, share it. If you’ve ever been misunderstood, this is for you too. ❤️ #TourettesAwareness #Neurodiversity #Misunderstood #ListenFirst #PoetryForChange Misunderstood  They said it was hiccups. Just a twitch. A cough. A glitch. Sent me out of class. Again. “Get so...

  Death Knocks The beginning of the end, they call it. A phrase passed like gossip, like the lid of a coffin passed down through generations. Some want it swift— if I go, let it be quick. Some want time— give me a minute to tidy my life, kiss my daughter, fold the laundry. I’m ready, I think— me, just me. But not for your death, not for hers, not for the hush that falls when your neighbour doesn’t open the curtains. Not for that. It knocks— sometimes like thunder, sometimes soft as the memory of a lullaby. A cough. A bruise. A silence you learn to speak around. We tell them: Walk. Smile. Try. As if effort is medicine, as if breath is earned. Exist harder, we whisper. But they’ve heard it too, haven’t they? That knock. Pretending not to. For us. Too far gone, they might say. And still— they stay. Not for themselves. For the shape of our hand in theirs. For the grief we haven't learned to carry.

  Access Everyone has access needs. They just don’t call them that. He needs his coffee strong. She needs her chair by the window. They need the lights low, the music soft. You need silence to sleep. You need help with the heavy doors. You need space. You need time. You need your phone always in reach. But we— the ones who say it out loud, the ones who name it— we are the ones they call difficult. Everyone has access needs. But they don’t wear the name like we do. Don’t have to ask. Don’t have to prove. Don’t have to beg for a ramp, a break, a softer world. A man with sore knees gets a cushion. A woman with anxiety gets "just tired." A child who stims gets labelled. Everyone has access needs. But some are treated like preferences. And some—like problems. I need captions. You need patience. She needs rest. He needs more time. They need to speak without flinching. We all need something. The difference is whether the world says yes before we ask.

  Raised in a school system that told us:  Use every punctuation mark—prove you understand language. Semicolons like medals, colons like gateways, commas like breath— and the em dash? A triumph. Then AI came. And suddenly, punctuation became suspicious. The Oxford comma—too precise. The em dash—too stylised. Too confident. Too human. Now they say: "Write like a person." But not like  that . Not like  you . Not like the way they taught you, or the way your brain naturally spills onto the page—unfiltered, beautiful, punctuated. I say: Em dashes unite. Oxford commas rise. Every full stop is a resistance. Every comma is a choice. We were taught this language. We  own  it.

White Paper, Green Paper I am a line in a file buried beneath a budget. I am  costed ,  calculated , cut. White paper: folded, creased, clinical as a waiting room with no names. Green paper: like bile, like envy, like the colour of rot on a form that says: “work makes you worthy.” I try— God, I try— to write against it. To shout inside the silence they've stapled across our mouths. But they call it policy. They call it "help." They call it "getting people into work" like we are just clutter that needs repurposing. We. Are. Not. Furniture. PIP? Going, going. Access to Work? Only if you walk on your knees and thank them for the privilege of surviving. I try to stop it. I am trying. But the fight has been rinsed from so many hands that once raised signs, that once clutched one another. I see them now— tired palms, turned inward. And I feel like the last breath before the lungs give up. They say: “You are as good as your disability.” And I say: I  am  my disability....

  I talk back. That’s my flaw— not silence, not shame, but speech. I talk back to the gammons. Gammons: pink-skinned and puffed-up, faces like cured meat, red with a rage they can’t name, so they point it like a shotgun at anyone not like them— queer, brown, disabled, wrong . They say: “The gays are everywhere.” (Yes, we are. You’re welcome.) They say: “The immigrants are taking the jobs.” (What jobs? The ones you won’t do? The ones you never trained for, never applied for, never wanted until someone else had them?) A man with one tooth thinks he's been cheated out of dentistry. A man with no empathy thinks he’s been cheated out of the NHS while an immigrant puts on gloves, saves a life, writes prescriptions in perfect English you’ll never read. They say: “Pride is every month now.” Yes. It is. Because survival deserves a parade. Because existing in colour while you sulk in beige doesn’t erase you. Gammons. They know nothing but the heat in their necks when a trans woman walks past...