This Fragile Thing coming September 2026.
The criminal honours himself with statues built in the open parklands of his mind.
I honour myself on paper,
it is a smaller recognition,
but it can be held more closely by others.
I read what I can, but I cannot borrow books from the library because my mother hasn’t paid the fines. If I had enough books I could build us a nicer house. I must read the right kind of books so I can build the right kind: Keats for slow-burn romance in the bedroom, gothic literature for the vaulted ceilings, pointed arches. I‘m a bricklayer using Dewey-Decimals.
This book is very critical of the political and social conventions that meant I was blamed for what happened to me, blamed for disclosing. I use my story to challenge the idea that my vulnerability in that moment was a personal failing, a failure on my part to make the right decisions, to keep myself safe. I know this now: I am not responsible for my trauma. .
This Fragile Thing (forthcoming 2026) is a vulnerable poetic memoir about how I have survived childhood trauma and sexual abuse. It exposes the lasting impacts of childhood sexual abuse, the institutions that failed me, and the family who chose him over me.
For him, this shame is a transaction.
My no is a flood filling up the room, he reaches
down into the water. My no is all over the curtains.
My shame is a rock sinking. The ripples on the surface
disappear. He says I should tell no one.
We are the only ones who know it’s there.
Self-publishing has always felt like the most authentic path forward - a political act where I take back control of my story. My agency was violently ripped from me as a child, but I can reclaim it now.
My parents fill the glass I’m holding. Their anger overflows, spreads like toxic algae in our salt-soaked home, this pink lake. I’m scared the water level will keep rising. This is how inland lakes are formed. My parents can swim, I can’t. Mum throws a plate; the shattered, sharp rocks reshape the current.
When I was ten years old, I collected bedrooms and training bras instead of magazines. I collected walls.
When I was ten years old, I collected bedrooms and training bras instead of magazines. I collected walls.
I grew up in short-term rentals, but I wanted breasts I owned, wanted to decorate, and paint them, like the girls who wore lip-gloss to school.
I grew up in short-term rentals, but I wanted breasts I owned, wanted to decorate, and paint them, like the girls who wore lip-gloss to school.
But I was too young to decorate a home. My parents chose which wall buttressed the couch, unpacked my clothes into new chests of drawers, chose what I wore.
But I was too young to decorate a home. My parents chose which wall buttressed the couch, unpacked my clothes into new chests of drawers, chose what I wore.
The design process has also been challenging as I’ve had to work within many of the systems my poetry actively resists. My process makes use of found images and, while this book often challenges authority, I do have the proper licensing agreements in place. Stock images, and images in the public domain, are an important part of my work as very few artefacts survived my childhood. I destroyed many of those that did after my diary was read in court. My use of collage fragments these materials because their story of what happened is broken, because it broke me.
The normal way of telling a story doesn't work for trauma. Much like these pages, trauma cannot be contained or understood.
