If I am a witch (as I am often told) 
then each and every verse I write  
casts its own spell. My mind is  
a cauldron that seethes with  
dark matter with which I brew 
potent metaphors, to cast out  
demons and hex those who  
cross my will. In its depths roil  
my cast off skins, sloughed off 
from other lives, tears shed, my  
sweat and blood, the calloused  
skin from my toes and hanks  
of greying hair, all the toil and 
trouble of a lived life, in a world  
that marked me as different from  
its narrow view. I’ve tossed in my  
father’s ashes and the dead weight  
of lovers lost and cast off, that hid  
like skeletons in my mental closet 
and brought back nightmares. I 
have locked and chained the 
pages where my younger self  
scribbled talismans of romance  
and tried to shift myself for others’ 
pleasing. Time has taught me to 
gloss over these margins and recast  
old truths with new knowledge: 
that self acceptance manifests in  
both dark and light, shadow and sun, 
above and below, where intention  
remakes a life both cursed and  
blessed. So let me be.  

[Kate Meyer-Currey was born in 1969 and moved to Devon in 1973. A varied career in frontline settings has fuelled her interest in gritty urbanism, contrasted with a rural upbringing. Her ADHD also instils a sense of ‘other’ in her life and writing.]