FebulousFebruary 2026: The Old Photograph

Harm

Do you ever or have you ever considered harming yourself?

So asks the friendly whilst distant and contained person on the other end of the phone.

‘No’ I say and then ‘well maybe a bit when I was a teenager’

I have always said I would never put my friends and family through that and I still feel that. But now we’ve got the experience of someone who could and did, I’m upset but I don’t really have a capacity for the anger it just sits right there, a solar plexus of nausea wrapped up with tears that never quite make it out. I’m too weary and silenced by the knowledge of the choice you made and a depth of fatigue which never lightens and never leaves, I don’t want to sit here with these thoughts so I won’t, I’m going, not like you went, now, get the fuck out of my head.

Janet Jones , Brighton

Rose

His weary heart 

brought him 

breath by laboured breath 

to my garden gate.

I was pruning the climbing rose 

so it must have been February time.

“ I was wrong” he said

“wrong” he repeated 

on one clean crisp lop.

The thorny stem hit the path, skipping slightly, then landed between his dusty, tan brogues.

Our eyes met.

Decades kaleidoscoped.

He turned away.

He walked away.

Away from my garden gate.

He walked with a shuffle now.

Another lop gnashed for rage.

Another gnawed the shame away. 

Shuffle…….shuffle…….

Lop chop lop snap 

Sweet taste of salt sweat. 

Lopped to ground stumps 

where something, maybe forgiveness, lay.

A faint, dusty whisper of a last shuffle.

That June fragrance of magenta roses filled the air, and what an abundant spread! Proper showing off they were,  and they bloomed throughout that long, luxurious summer. 

Fiona Thomson

Kent

Fiona Thomson 

Kent

Found.

The day I found you
the small c
You just appeared
and caused misery.

More tests and scans
prods and pangs
Still at work
The boss is a jerk.

Why do they compare
tumours to fruit?
Oranges, Satsumas
even Cantaloupe!

Well hello The Big C
Are you the end of me?
“Just go for a CT
then we can see”
“Is that a PE?”
Jab your tummy
Daily.

Lost.

Boobs to Pubes
That’s a long way
74 staples
Tidy array.

Gone is your Womb
and all that’s attached
Unexpected wound –
“We’re sorry for that”

That’s a Stoma
we’re sorry to say
Cancer on bowel
We took it away.

Next step chemo
to mop up the rest.
Work sends memo
What a fucking request!

Goodbye hair
We had such fun!
Out with the clippers
“You look like my son!”

Five Years
What a surprise
Five years
No tears in my eyes
Five years
My back hurts a lot
Five years
My teeth gone to pot
Five years
Here’s to the next
Five years
That’s NOT all I’ve got.

Fuck You Cancer.

Jacqui Soo,
63
Ovarian Cancer Warrior.

Child with a grandmother stare

Did a forward roll on the road

In the gap between our passing tuk tuk and another

‘Food for family’

We were off again into the choir of beeps and honks before I could fill her outstretched hand with rupees.

Fiona, Kent

Lost…and found

 

Lost sheep 

Lost sleep 

Lost weight

Lost keys 

 

Lost parents

Lost friends 

Lost time

Lost love…

 

I think about loss,

And the impermanence of things…

 

Nothing lasts 

It will pass

It does – and it did,

Pass that is.

 

So here I am,

Found, standing –

In the last quarter, possibly 

How strange that sounds…

 

Found peace

Found quiet

Found myself, if there is such a thing…

 

There’s certainly a sky

Today’s is grey

There’s grass, and rain

I found those yesterday.

 

What have you lost?

What have you found?

Where are you

In the whole great scheme of things?

Val Johnson, Herne Bay

Wild

We picked wild flowers in the industrial port of Ramsgate

We picked wild flowers in the industrial port of Ramsgate

She started singing and I joined in, we were singing Bread and Roses

She said, it’s great you know all the words. I said, how’s your perfect harmony? 

We went wild camping in the mossy park of Loch Lomond

We went wild camping in the mossy park of Loch Lomond

I brought a trowel so we could bury our poo. She brought blankets and magic mushrooms. 

She asked why don’t you set free your heart. I said, girl I know you’ll be gone soon. 

We went wild swimming in the reservoir near Sheffield

We went wild swimming in the reservoir near Sheffield

We took off our tops. Took some pictures that were hot. It’s weird we have the same boobs. 

Asked if she could share with her new friends in the queer bilberries Whatsapp group. 

We picked wild flowers in the industrial port of Ramsgate

We picked wild flowers in the industrial port of Ramsgate

She started singing and I joined in, we were singing  Bread and Roses

She said, it’s great you know all the words. I said, how’s your perfect harmony? 

Megan Megglestein

Ramsgate

THE SOCIAL MASK March 86/rev 2022

Today I met a friend, 

– once close, some decade and a half ago.

Nervous though I was at what I knew

Yet what became revealed seemed something wholly unfamiliar.

On the outside?  Very much the same

(Though maybe emphasised a little more):

Heavy bovine features

-Back then I would never have used that word, or thought –

Yet so much like her mother’s

Whose death caused us this strained reunioned meet.

And whose likeness I’d never previously discerned.

No extra weight, surprisingly,

 as clearly there’s a genetic  inclination that’s built in.

• (How inner fears so generate suspicion)!

Hair, much the same in length and cut, 

Though so much blonder now,

And a face now painted 

To a line-free glaze

that

 made me wonder what was being masked beneath.

So strange that this oddly fitting girl that I once new

had grown to match the glamour of a Peggy Lee.

But what was there beneath? The sentiments, the feelings, the politely muted anger towards me?

Shielding behind my child, used as a screen,

I peered and peeked,

And was discomforted at what I think I saw…

The platitudes abounded,

With posturings and posings –

My erstwhile friend resembled something like a- player queen;

Sympathy was entitled, and pain and loss 

 were owned, eked out …and seemingly enjoyed.?

*       *       *

It took some years of input to see again beneath the mask,

Yet so, in time, we managed a closer if more distanced intimacy.

Ian Munday,  LLanbrynmair, Wales

The Fruit’s Revenge

Murdering plum

here I hang, from my stem ripening in the sun

The tree branches swing I cling and brighten, awaiting ripening to deepening reds, my coat of protective skin, to flare…

I hide there within the fanfare of claws, wings and teeth, I’m the insects’ feast. They suck my sap and leave me feeling rather crap. 

But most common are the human hands that pluck me from the lands for jams and not the caterpillars.     The hands are the real killers, scrumping thrillers, the common land millers and tillers, all the jam jar fillers, killers. 

A glass jam jar is my hearse, my sweet nectar is your curse.

Your hands feel and peel away my skin painfully thin and throw me in the bin. Discarded, my coat I no longer wear from your, rip, your tear my flesh uncloaked, sliced and pummelled to death.  Eat my pip I dare.

The knife scored out my core, my stone heart rejected like old bones, if caught in your throat my pip, you choke. 

You scoop the zest, the best of the flesh, and place me to rest in a jar, whispering, you my favourite jam to spread on bread.  My life’s dread.

You spy the stone you left alone, my core my heart you tore, you put it in your mouth rolling it about you can’t resist you grab the jar, pop the lid, the knife you slide and spread me on your bread……..

A big mistake, the stone seals your fate. You bite and swallow my heart, it sticks and chokes for sure, you breathe no more.

Laying on the kitchen floor, you’re off to the grave yard, stone buried, my heart secure. I’ll be covered in earth once more. 

Andrea Francis, London 

“When one door closes, another opens.”

When one door slams shut, the force of the air shatters a window, and glass flies everywhere, slashing expectations, blowing papers, dreams and possibilities round the room. Letting in fresh air, fresh ideas……and fresh terrors.m Letting out the heat, the familiar smells of home…..and the canary – delighted by his freedom, a flash of yellow joy heading for the apple tree.

Through the window, free of its imperfectly cleaned glass, I can see the canary ion his tree, and seeing him, I notice the appleblossom, imagining its smell. That window might also be a door; carefully- don’t cut yourself – follow the canary outside, smell the blossom, feel the sun. Forget the other door, the jumbled mess inside, the broken glass.

Smug people will tell us that disaster or opportunity is only a question of attitude. The window is not lost, the garden is found. The canary is not lost, he is free.

But I still miss him.

Fin, Gateshead 

Lost and Found

Creaky knees

Running up stairs

Careless indulgence

Saturated fat avoidance

Levis jeans

M&S elasticated waistlines

Red wine

Alcohol free beer

Dancing till dawn and a burger van chaser

It’s a late night at 11pm

The lemon hue of spring light

The sweet joy of snowdrops

Friends

Family

Birdsong

True love

Gratitude

Lel Meleyal, Scarborough