Home About me What I Offer Poems

Poems

Fathers – FEMININE COLLECTIVE

I give until I break
I keep trying even though my mother tells me to let go.
I thought I had you back
After 7 years of hopes crushed, self-esteem broken
I even tell you as much
But then you’re gone again
And my heart breaks in two just as it did when I was 10
I didn’t know it was coming then and I didn’t know now.
Except at 10 my heart was malleable and soft
Like greenstick fractures, my heart could mend
But now I’m 31 I’m not so sure
My walls are up, and the moat is deep
And my heart is brittle...

The After – FEMININE COLLECTIVE

Emily Frances Algar is a journalist and writer. She has experience in the music industry working as the A&R on the Grammy Nominated Album (Best Folk Album) Front Porch by artist Joy Williams. Emily has been published in a number of print and digital publications including Atwood Magazine, American Songwriter, and Record Collector magazine. She specializes in both long and short-form features as well as interviews and reviews. She has written pieces ranging from the commercialization of feminism...

To what you let go – FEMININE COLLECTIVE

Do your hands still look the same as they did?
Do you still wear those shirts?
Are your shoes still under your desk?
Do you still worry about your hair turning grey?
Does your voice still sound like song?
Do you still lie awake at night
Thinking about it over and over
Wondering if you could redo it,
Over and over, would you?
Do you still wish you were somewhere else?
Or do you find moments of happiness in your kids that make it all seem less suffocatingly unhappy?
Do you think about me?
Do you w...

The Girl with Her Heart in a Box – FEMININE COLLECTIVE

There once was a girl who kept her heart in a box.
She met a man and wanted to show him her heart. She opened the box, and took out her heart, piece by piece, laying it on the floor for him to see.
You see, another man had once broken her heart so she carefully wrapped each piece away in the box and hid it away in the attic.
The man sat on the floor with the pieces. He picked each piece up carefully and gently, running his fingers along the scars, stroking the parts that were still bruised, and...

Pandemic – FEMININE COLLECTIVE

My stomach ties itself in knots.
I spend ages sitting in the bathroom as I empty every worry, fear and stress I have accumulated
And then I go back downstairs and fill up on some more.
It’s flight or fight and I have chosen the in-between
Because the flights are grounded and dreams are put on pause for now
And fighting is for other people.
We live from day to day, hour by hour
Waiting for the big one
The wave that will knock us all down, the one we will all feel
Except it is silent, invisible an...

My String of Lights – FEMININE COLLECTIVE

V1This string of lights I hold in my hands always looks so prettySo bright, so perfect and hangs just soEach bulb is where it is meant to beThere are no knots in the wireOr broken filaments And each part hangs just where I want itAll making sense way up high on the wall


V2Why can’t I get my life to fit so neatly together?Green, blue, pink, yellowGreen, blue, pink, yellowOne after anotherThe pattern never straysYou know what’s coming next, how things should fit together


V3Why can’t my life...

Excavate – FEMININE COLLECTIVE

You touch me and I give way
You wrap your arms around me
My back against your chest
And I lean back,
Oh how I lean and bend against you
My skin against yours has me making sounds that are not my own
You have awoken something in me
Something unfamiliar
But someone I remember
You have disturbed the soil and I won’t go back down
I can’t
I have stayed in the dark and cold and been told it’s for my own good, for too long
I want you to bend me until I break, baby
In two, then four, then six and so on...

Some Language is More Equal Than Others – FEMININE COLLECTIVE

My no means less than your yes.
My no to you perhaps means yes.
My no is up for discussion.
My no can be persuaded or explained away
Or followed down the street.
 
It can be molded until it sounds like yes to your ears
But still no to mine.
 
My no can be worn down
With niceness and faux concern
Or violence from your tongue and fists.
Each belonging to the same masters:
Manipulation and control.
 
And after a time
My no’s become a yes from an exasperated mind and lips.
 
This is when I realise t...

White Horses – FEMININE COLLECTIVE

Emily Frances Algar is a journalist and writer. She has experience in the music industry working as the A&R on the Grammy Nominated Album (Best Folk Album) Front Porch by artist Joy Williams. Emily has been published in a number of print and digital publications including Atwood Magazine, American Songwriter, and Record Collector magazine. She specializes in both long and short-form features as well as interviews and reviews. She has written pieces ranging from the commercialization of feminism...

Conform – FEMININE COLLECTIVE

I’m talking but no one is listening.
Words pour out of my mouth
Real words, actual words, fully formed assertive words
But no one is listening.
They hear different words.
Different fully formed words
Words they like, words they agree with
Words that make their world a little easier and more comfortable.
But the words they hear are not my words.
These words constrict me
Crush my chest and pour dust down my throat
They squeeze me into a corner
They tie me down
They show me a tunnelled future and a...

Follow Me