Suna is a sage. One of those rare people you meet who transcends time with boundless wisdom. She is blessed with the ability to be at once inquisitive while listening intently and being absolutely present. A skill which not only makes her great company but leaves you coming away knowing more about yourself and asking open ended questions about your life and the universe. Her submission for the project is about as close to the spirit of the write, speak, recover process as one could possibly be. Writing has literally guided her life from places of suffering into finding a calling in psychology and therapy - to heal herself and others. The poem she shares here is so close to my lived experience it is as if it is written for me and I have been revisiting it and turning it inside out. Which has served to show me how far I have come, (not today Satan!!) so I thank Suna for that. I hope you’ll find yourself here too, and see you too are on the right path.
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Suna
I was 12 when life started to feel impossible and I never knew how to ask for help. I wrote a letter to my year leader and this woman saved me in many ways. She was the first who told me I had a way with words. I described the feelings that drove me to cope in harmful ways as ‘the feeling of the universe flowing in my veins, [and this was] the only way to let it out’. She taught me my words had value and that abstract ways of communicating could actually convey what I thought only I could feel, that others could never understand. She encouraged me to lean into my creativity, to write, draw, express myself through art - I will forever thank this woman for giving me hope and relief, for introducing me to a safe space I can carry with me for the rest of my life.
When I was 15 I learnt I had a gift that I should nourish. In GCSE English, we analysed poetry. My teacher would start a sentence and I’d finish it. He told me he was surprised to hear I didn’t plan on university - saying he’d assumed I’d go on to do English. He gave fire to the possibility in my brain, opening up a path I hadn’t considered because his belief in me made me believe in myself. I went on to take English Literature at A-level where I fell more and more in love with the subject. I wrote poetry occasionally, a random prompt here and there until I fell in and out of love for the first time. A secret love is something I’d known before - the kind you covet in silence, the kind you have to heal in silence.
I started writing poetry to process the love and pain I couldn’t share. Writing became an integral part of the way I process my emotions, work through experiences and understand myself and others. Now I consciously and consistently use poetry and prose as a tool to dissect my experiences, develop my understanding, explore memories I can’t look at plainly, and position myself in other people’s perspectives - those that hurt me, those I’ve hurt, those I miss, those I don’t understand, those I long to know, those I wish to - but will never - forget.
Writing helps me make sense of things I can’t explain, allows me to imitate and communicate the feelings that feel indescribable, it helps me mould pain into beauty - helps me grow through creative analysis, dynamic expression, pretty words, rhymes and rhythms. Writing has saved my life, I can’t imagine how I would carry the weight of the world without a way to translate my soul into language I can understand, observe and share - I no longer have to attack my body to express my pain, I instead pour it onto the page and it’s how I stay sane.
Lover Lucifer
no matter how many drift in between
you’re the one i can’t forsake.
their arms may wrap around my body but it’s you i run to.
i don’t walk, i sprint.
i don’t wish, i am compelled.
you lurk in my desire as time ticks,
i watch the clock to count the minutes until i’m consumed by your existence.
your absence itches my skin, throat and eyes -
you’re my antihistamine.
when i’m condemned to silence and solitude without you my blood boils,
rationality rolls out the window because i’m not wrapped in your will.
when we’re tangled together
i get to melt into your sweetness -
soft and soothing -
my mounting misery is no longer protruding into my psyche like spikes in the chokey.
the super ego no longer schools me on how many times i failed to fulfil my potential today,
counting countless circumstances of procrastination,
those dances around priorities i negated -
that’s tomorrow's problem.
so when it’s just us in silence and solitude
i feel nothing but my beating heart and hazy eyes,
vision that doubles and actions decided before thinking twice -
i’m giddy in your arms,
relaxing in your river of sadistic salvation.
i nourish my shadow with the warmth of your toxic undertones.
you cradle me in a comfort i can’t deny,
when i should walk away, i run towards
your palms that wipe my tears when i need you -
which is never and always.
no matter how many times i’m told you’re poisonous,
there’s nothing more precious to me than you -
my reclusive remedy.
as the night darkens and threatens to disappear
i must drift off before the magic fades,
top up before time takes away the floating facilitated by the motion of your movements,
those i float upon -
my lifeboat and anchor.
you let me swim and drown,
forcing my gills to evolve because
i cannot exist outside your ocean.
you’re the reason i float and stay down below the depths of your desires.
i need you to silence the screeching of my sadness sustained by the mulling that
my madness isn’t my downfall,
it’s you who keeps me stuck
yet i need you to survive my stress and suffering that stings like a serpent that secretes a poison that can’t be antidoted by any but you -
a love story and a death sentence.
after dusk my prayers are dissolved by you slithering down my throat -
my pretty lies i choke on
as i’m asphyxiated by your sweet and subtle notes of cherry and chocolate,
vanilla on my tongue.
you cradle me in caramel coated cruelty,
caressing my consciousness and consuming my skin until we are no longer detached beings.
i dissolve into the devil’s dreamscape -
you’re his agent of demise.
so i gaze at the stars as i drift into slumber
whispering into the dark delusions that you’re the muse of my art.
as i sway and stumble into slumber
i smile softly;
i’ve never loved another as i love you -
lover lucifer,
i’m drowning in your glass;
your malicious mardi gras i declared
i could deny at the start.
so how do i say goodbye to my lifeline? -
my lover of the nighttime.
On the writing process
I often write only when I feel compelled or inspired, often when I’m going through difficult things and negative emotions, other times I’ll write a title, few lines or a short paragraph but I find those bursts of inspiration often remain unfinished and I find it hard to come back to them. I find it easiest to write in the hardest times, especially with things I find difficult to explain, a depth of emotion in the experience that words just don’t do justice for. I always come away from open mics feeling really inspired, furiously typing on the train home. Sometimes it’s something I see on socials, a line I hear, a thought I can’t shake or feeling that I just can’t explain that sparks a poem, but I always come away feeling better. I like to repeat lines and themes in different poems, weaving my story between them, knowing I’m the only one who will ever understand the whole story whilst loving the fact people will write their own stories into my work – I can only pray people find comfort in my words like I do.
Although I wish I could be old-school and analogue by writing in a pretty notebook I carry everywhere but that’s just not currently my reality. I’ll try and push myself to write on pen and paper more, but the truth is I type poems on my phone and the words often flow like angry and hurt break up texts. I really enjoy the freedom to edit and revise, shift things that don’t quite fit without having the evidence of my mistakes or messy thoughts shown in 5 lines and 3 halfwords crossed out - maybe that says something about the kind of person and poet I am, maybe that’s what I need to stop being so scared of. I like how accessible my notes app is though; I’m never without it which means I also never have any excuse to not write apart from lacking inspiration.
I’m trying to push myself to write more about the positive, not only using poetry and writing as a mechanism to process the bad but I just find it much easier to write about times of hardship, I often feel I don’t need to write and explore the things that are easy to experience but maybe finding more ways to talk about it will help them become familiar.
Favourite poets, poetry nights, books or other resources:
If I’m very honest, I don’t read many poets, but I do love an open mic - Crossword Lyric is my favourite and I’m a fan of BYOB Wembley and Window to the Spirits. My favourite books are The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, All About Love and The Will to Change by bell hooks, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky and The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. I feel like all these books left a lot with me. I like to read poetry and short essays on Medium, there I often find very relatable, very grounding and very eye-opening works - all very clarifying in a way, but I have no particular favourites.
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.
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If you need support, here are some resources:
Samaritans
Alcohol Change
Recovery Dharma
Alcoholics Anonymous
This article was brought to you by Tim Foley and Graham Thomas.
