I first heard Kellie at Lost Souls Poetry night. I felt kinda off myself that day and didn’t like how I read but in the break they were super kind and told me they’d connected with it. I wasn’t going to stick around for the second act but after those kind words I felt better and I’m so glad I stayed. Kellie has this cool thing they do at open mic nights, asking the crowd to pick a number that determines what they’ll read that night. Which is genius because it means Kellie doesn’t stress over the specific poem to read like I do! It’s a lovely personal way to engage the crowd and make them part of the process of sharing. What comes next is always explosive, raw, honest and hopeful. Perfectly aligned with the Write Speak Recover vision. Kellie and I weren’t completely happy with our first portrait shoot together. I’m so glad we were patient and allowed space and time to decide what to do next. A pot of tea and a couple of breakfast sandwiches later and we nailed it. From start to finish it’s been a lovely collaboration for both of us, and I am a better photographer and poet for it. Over to Kellie.
Please be mindful WSR content can be thematically sensitive.
That night at Lost Souls was my first time sharing my work. I’ve been sitting on a collection called ‘Letters to the dead (not really just to me)’ for about five years. After nearly dying in a domestic violence relationship I made some tough calls and went no contact from almost everyone I knew. The collection serves as my memorial to the undead. A graveyard for the living. My way of reclaiming my voice after my narrative being in the mouths of others for years.
My childhood was traumatic and I see myself as inhabiting a meat suit that carries multiple marginalised identities. My story has encompassed addiction, abuse, neglect, compulsions, mental health and generational trauma.
I’ve been thinking about the sentiment I want to convey and one thing that felt pertinent was that there’s often an expectation to denounce everything that came before recovery; like some sort of repentance. As if we’re worthy of empathy only if we adopt this stance. Life doesn’t work like that, and there are things I miss about my old life. A bit of healthy hedonism is essential to survive the circus - it was the cost that came from my acts which became problematic. The subcultures and the real people you encounter in suffering circles (I'd argue dancefloors are full of trauma) are where the grit and humanity is at. I liked the sense of being part of something that transcended the vanilla, the prescribed, the neoliberalist. The lifestyle came with many things I do not miss, but it was not generic and it was NEVER boring. However, life is undoubtedly better, sober. Before I had a simulacrum of everything. Now I have the real deal.
I enjoyed having effortless charm and all the weirdness and I enjoyed the break from my cognition style. Addiction provided the experience of an empty head. It kept me out of a body I wanted to abandon; I could feel as though I were only a brain, unburdened by ‘woman’ or ‘girl’ or ‘body'.’
Drugs desexualised me and took me to a place of playfulness and curiosity. Babygirl was synthesising a childhood state she hadn’t experienced. Recovery has been about finding healthy mechanisms to replace these once essential, but ultimately no longer useful, functions and receiving treatment and diagnosis’ to help me claim the reins of my experience rather than being at its mercy.
Back then, substances gave me excuses for things I didn’t have a language for. Any weird behaviour could be written off as being wasted. They helped me make an identity out of my otherisaztion. I was an outsider who was unsafe and unwell, carving this into a caricature gave me agency and was less scary.
Of course there are things I’m glad to see the back of - the uglier side of coping. There was a disregard for my life. I lived like one with their arms out on a windy day hoping for a tornado. I glamorised the risk and took pride in my ‘resilience.’ Sadly, being a "wreckhead" served as social currency for someone pretty much invisible. I would use substances to impress people so I could join their (unsafe) circles. I tried to spin it for myself as intellectual and spiritual pursuit, but honestly, I didn’t care what happened to me. I've had false memories and flashbacks when blackout states have intersected with PTSD to create entirely made up narratives that have dictated how I’ve conducted myself for weeks. There’d be the customary round robin text to gather info and float potential apologies. My traumatised parts often used to take over and I’d become progressively young and frankly, a mess. Pissed children are a fragile thing to behold and a nightmare to deal with. Injuries and losing items were common and humiliating. I hated those hours at the afters when you realised the time to go home had been yesterday and none of those people were your friends.
I lived in fear until I was 33. Now I live in love. My life is mine now - not borrowed or stolen. I have created something I don’t want to escape from. Spending the majority of my time in the skin I tried to destroy, erase and make invisible is a true homecoming.
One I know I deserve.
Damning Dichotomies
Dangerously hedonistic she said.
It got under my skin.
As if this slow suicide was akin
to seeking pleasure.
I never found
the sensory treasure
she marked me as hunting.
It was only ever
avoiding pain.
It’s a disservice to talk about it
as if they’re one and the same.
‘Life’ was a series of futile claims.
Laments of ‘Never again!’
That were always, definitely, 100%,
the very last time.
It always happened again.
The decision was never mine.
Walking dead revulsion.
Frenzied avoidant compulsions.
Why do I never learn, confusion.
I just need to try harder, delusion.
Reckless self abandon.
Dangerously hedonistic she said.
It made me feel sick.
As if this parade of discomfort
was akin to seeking pleasure.
There was no delight,
on all fours,
on sleepless nights,
in shaking the rug
just in case there was a smokable bud.
There was no thrill in missing funerals
because you’d taken too many pills.
Where was the joy
in waking up to blood stained floors?
In retracing the remnants of decisions
(that must have been yours)
that could only be evidenced
by the scene you have no memory of creating,
but recognise as your signature
because it's happened before.
I wasn’t hedonistic.
The dangerous summation was closer.
What I needed to heal was connection
if I wanted to get sober.
It’s a myth to think that sobriety
is the opposite of addiction.
It's a community.
It’s the readiness to feel,
radically, with conviction.
It’s the freedom to let go
of framing your beautifully fragile humanity as a sickness.
Allowing shame to melt
under the gaze of a judgement-free witness.
Self love counts too.
I thawed the walls
with compassion.
My resilience
and the armour I fashioned
are gifts today.
As you become the things that you needed
that were missing,
all of that guilt
that you are clinging to
will fade.
There is no shame
in adapting to survive.
Forgive yourself for what you had to do.
Give yourself the grace
to thrive.
On the writing process
The birthing of my work is generally a subconscious process. I will often wake and there’ll be a sense of urgency that I have learnt to recognise. It is a call to purge and tell a story. There is never any question of not following my nose on those days and the writing will take priority. It will normally come out in one go, fully formed and require little edits. I generally can’t choose to write or have any control over what it will be about. I often feel like I'm a conduit. There are experiences and perspectives the parts of my inner world insist must be witnessed and I facilitate and write at their whim.
Everything is a resource in my opinion; nature, people, truth, a gesture, the unsaid, shared glances. I draw from the feeling you get when it’s raining and you can’t sleep and you count the drops on the tin roof of the factory you live in or the unabashed confidence of a child running through a room of giants.
It's impossible to separate my sobriety journey from my mental health and survivor status and so the ways in which the process has been helpful for my recovery is a layered and complex picture. Ultimately though, I lacked agency for a long time. Through gaslighting, self erasure and intersectional marginalisation I had become silenced. Writing allowed me to reclaim my narrative and take back my voice that had been public property for too long. The cementing and the permanence that writing offers is another way that I am able, and continue to insist, on taking up space.
Favourite poets, poetry nights, books or other resources:
Magie Nelson / Inua Ellams / Caleb Femi / Tom Sastry / Charles Bukowski
I’m fairly new to the circuit. My main experiences have been at Lost Souls Poetry in Balham which is run by the most endearing and genuinely supportive host, Hannah. And, Sober AF where Sean and Molly have created a safe inclusive place that always leaves me exhilarated and hopeful. I’m starting to explore others and the support, encouragement and talent I am finding in these rooms is phenomenal.
To close this out I’ll say, life is poetry and it’s unfolding perpetually - all you have to do is reach out and grab it. I try to honour an approach that doesn’t take tweezers to any given subject and I'm willing to reach into dark corners with both hands. Life is play and life is pain. As writers I believe it’s essential to hold space for both of these things.
I work with human stories, especially the ones they’d rather you didn’t tell.
Write Speak Recover, in collaboration with TheNeverPress is an open, free collection of original portraits of poets using their art to find strength in their recovery journey from any form of dis-ease.
We invite you to follow Write Speak Recover on Instagram and to reach out to Tim Foley at WSR or us directly at the zine to learn more, or put yourself forward to be featured in this initiative.
If you need support, here are some resources:
Samaritans
Alcohol Change
Recovery Dharma
Alcoholics Anonymous
Be kind. Stay present. One moment after the next.
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