FebulousFebruary 2026: The Old Photograph

Can we drown the wave dreams now please?

When the wave comes

And you run,

sister scooped by mum

Dad carries the stuff

And lonely you

Run

Those three year old legs

Won!

Ta for that!

Harriet McDonald

Whitstable 

Things that should have been said

You have extraordinary hair. The colour, blue-black. Unusual and beautiful.

You are clever, sharp minded, quick witted.

Whatever you become is just fine – rocket scientist, factory worker – so long as you are happy is

what matters.

Well done!

You make us proud.

This is what kindness actually looks like.

Things that should not have been said

Why can’t you be…..

Lel, Scarborough

Hats

Lesbians and teenage boys

You wear it well

Turned back and turned up

Security camera disguised

Or gang member badge so you know I’m cool enough to know I’m not cool enough at 50 

to share a rebellious moment or team logo 

worn in pride at the win one goal more or one goal more achievements 

while we still had the legs for it in weekends 

fitting in with the gang at last.

Janet Jones  

Brighton

Boy be you 

Be the curly floppy hair and big boots 

Be the hidden 

Inside porkpie hats. 

Be the barricade of smoke 

of the red and white box. 

Hide for this while to keep 

you safe 

You can’t say all the 

words yet 

But out will come Someday soon. 

Boy treat your woes with 

dreams of what could be 

Channel the worry down 

a tunnel 

Holding on until the end 

You won’t waste time 

You won’t like it for a while 

But boy the light will 

heal you 

As the big boots step out 

into the light and swap for 

heels. 

As the flopping curly hair is 

ready for bleaching sprayed 

with glitter. 

As the smoky barricades 

become fresh air to breath 

and make you live. 

Boy be more gentle for now 

you will get there 

Boy keep safer than you 

have been. 

Hold tight.

Adam Haylock-Lott

Kent

With two weeks to go there is still time to contribute to celebrating and creating our own LGBTQI+ History in FebulousFebruary 2024.

Please email: fionarose@gmail with your piece of creative writing on the theme ‘To your childhood self’ (max 500 words).

all the best for now,

FioxiRose X

To my childhood self

They had you pegged as being a bit ‘Tim, nice but dim’

 but look what you had to work with;,

 A 1950’s curriculum and mediocre teaching. 

You still haven’t got to grips with the British line of succession,(probably due to trauma)

 and you don’t give a toss about the national product of Brazil.

 

My poor girl. You were such a timid little thing,

 Fearful of the girls at school, with their cruel mouths.

 Fearful at home, with harsh blows.

 But don’t worry my darling.

 Turns out you are really quite clever,

 And so very brave,

 to arrive at being me.

Meg Williams

LLanbrynmair

17-7-70

As a man of seventy, 

I think of the boy of 17. 

I think too of the boy age 7. 

So long ago, yet so recent. 

Memories still surface, of events before adolescence.  

Fears, fun, freaking out at stupid things, if only I had been stronger… 

Bodies metamorphose in ten years, 

The joys for boys age seven, are toys and tricks and treats. 

For the boychild, the merest ‘ten years older,’ things have changed so much. 

Teddies and lollies, toy cars and kids stuff, condemned to the cupboard. 

Bodies grow stronger, desires all grow bolder. 

Boys seek out girls girls seek out boys. 

Unless you’re not normal. 

“Normal?” What could ‘normal’ mean. 

A penury of loneliness, Darkness descends every waking hour, shoving you into a cupboard, a soulless existence, experienced by Teddies worldwide. 

His cupboard is a tomb, 

a closet, by name undecided, 

an island, 

a well, 

a desert. 

A hellhole for loneliness and pain, wanton self destruction just lurks there, 

gorging on loneliness and desire. 

Till come the moment boychild can grow some more. 

Girlchild can feel this too, equally lost, equally lonely, crying, and all alone. 

Perceptions, realisations, the comfort of a friend, parents support, ‘if you’re lucky!’ 

But if you’re not? Seventeen creeps to twenty one, Twenty three the next primary number, the next primary year in ageing. 

Aged then ticking to 70, looking back becomes a regular occupation. 

Remember this? Remember that? Remember what? What happened to him? 

Remember that first love of growing, kissing a boy, kissing a girl. 

Maybe a dare, maybe a care. Let yourself go, unbuckle the chest you locked yourself in. Open the closet, cuddle old Teddy in your mind. 

And in that moment of freedom, take a step, a tentative step, and maybe like this old man of seventy, if your lucky, that’s true, life won’t seem quite so bad. 

Everything started with a small step, everything demands something of you. 

But remember then your first loves, toys and cars and bears

Remember how you grew to love them, likewise you made your own luck, You gave yourselves some talking to, 

But mostly, you gave yourself, a ‘Hug.’

Peter Cronin-Hill ( composed 1st February 2024)

Whitstable.

To my childhood self:

Girl, sit down.

Breathe. You are so loved.

Learn to love yourself too

Because self love will keep you going.

Their fighting doesn’t define you.

Don’t let it affect you.

Keep your head above water the best you can.

Breathe. 

Those you judge you. 

Their judgement doesn’t mean you’re it.

Don’t listen to them,

Breathe.

He who torments you, he’s not it.

This isn’t love. It’s toxicity.

Don’t listen to him.

Just breathe.

Future you will be proud and strong.

Educated and independent.

The echoes of the past will haunt you, 

But try not to let the shit stick.

Girl, sit down and breathe.

Lauren Lynch

Christchurch, Aotearoa

Lone rotting fence post

Microcosmic mini world

Denizen of growth

Jayne Hazelden,

Hove

Pound Lane

Sleepless in bed I take an imaginary tour around my childhood garden, pass the lorry-sized tyre-swing, peek in at a wren’s nest full of eggs. My dad crouches down to the ground listening to radio 4 while he grubs out apple trees every sunny Saturday morning I sit and watch still worried now about killing food trees. 

I wander on til I arrive at the dense laurel hedge that dominates the edge. There are glasses clinking, people laughing and the sounds of a party going on in the garden beside ours. I’m confused because Mr and Mrs Button live next door, my pretend grandparents, whose house smells of fresh yeasty bread and something strange and fusty. 

I gaze at the evergreen, hurt by the noise, still too only-child to bear missing out, even now. Everywhere is the ‘lily of the valley’ smell I crave, but those party noises. Gone are the knot puzzles Mr Button would quietly help me solve, with patient stretch and soft pull however much I strained to tighten the string and the glass of barley sugar water Mrs Button handed me that I never did drink.  

What stays is the sound of new owners celebrating and the painful price of change.

Maj Ikle

Wales