The lovely folks at AEOS are running a Bank Holiday discount over the long weekend, where you can grab 50% off the cover price of this brilliant literature & culture magazine. There are some great issues to choose from and, not to brag, but I’ve been fortunate enough to have a piece featured in each of them.
It’s a buy-one-get-one-half-price deal — just add the promo code AEOSM at checkout.
Grab a copy today and step into something different.
What a strange and wonderful day it’s been.
First, I found out I’d received another accolade from the Dark Poets Club, which honestly means a great deal to me. Then, almost out of nowhere, I was offered the chance to be an official photographer for this year’s Torbay Pride event.
Photography is still very new territory for me. I’ve always just pointed the camera at things that caught my eye and hoped for the best, so stepping into something official feels both exciting and slightly overwhelming.
Still… growth rarely happens in comfort zones, does it?
Here’s to new experiences, learning curves, and seeing where the lens takes me next.
Stay safe,
BC
They point at the shoreline
like the country is drowning in rubber boats.
Like the reason your rent fills you with panic
is a man crossing the sea, with wet shoes
and a phone number stitched into his jacket.
Meanwhile, somewhere far from the food bank queue,
a billionaire laughs into a glass of champagne
on a yacht big enough to have its own postcode.
They tell us to fear the poor.
Never the people pricing us out of our own lives.
Never the landlords collecting houses
like football stickers.
Never the companies recording record profits
while your gran chooses between heating and eating
because both are luxuries now.
They don’t build anything.
They just keep your eyes busy…
Feed you someone to blame;
Someone close enough to touch.
Someone poorer, louder, stranger than you.
And while you’re choking on anger;
While you’re tricked into mistaking hatred for power,
the real thieves slip their billions quietly past,
carrying our tomorrow out the back door.
(c)BobChristian
Working on something a little darker than my usual scribbles lately, as I prepare for a possible upcoming competition.
Failing that, I’m thinking of gathering the whole collection together into a chapbook called Life Of Shadows — which, if I’m honest, feels like the perfect title for where my head’s been wandering creatively of late.
There’s something strangely cathartic about opening the door and letting the dark passenger stretch its legs for a while. Not in a destructive sense, more in the way storms clear the air. Poetry has always been part confession booth, part exorcism for me anyway.
Here’s one of the pieces from the series. It’s called The Garden Stirs, and I’m genuinely proud to say it was shortlisted for the Dark Poets Prize IV.
Issue Five of AEOS Magazine is out now.
Its bold collection of art, literature, and original talents. There’s even a poem of mine nestled in the pages.
Grab your copy today from AEOS.
and step into something different.
If you’re reading this,
it’s probably because the world has grown teeth again.
Sharp ones.
And someone, somewhere,
has mistaken their fear for scripture.
I want to tell you something,
and I want you to remember it
like your own name in your own voice.
You are not a mistake.
You are not a contradiction.
You are not a sin
that snuck past the gates of Heaven
wearing a hoodie, and hoping not to be seen.
You are divine
in ways the pages of their ancient book
forgot how to describe.
You are every sunrise
they never looked up to witness.
You are love
before it’s been broken down
into rules, revisions, and red tape.
Listen to me very carefully,
because the world won’t always say it this plainly.
There is nothing wrong with you.
Not your softness.
Not your sharpness.
Not the way your truth
refuses to fold itself
into smaller shapes
just to make other people comfortable.
Some people will try to turn
Their Deity into a weapon
and aim it at you.
So remember,
anything that demands your erasure
to prove its holiness
is neither holy, nor worth your time.
Their sermons
are not stronger than my love.
Their bigotry
is not bigger than your light.
You never have to shrink to survive,
not while I have breath.
I will always stand
between you and their stones.
I will always be the place
you can come back to,
even if your voice is shaking,
even if your hands are tired
from building yourself over and over
in the aftermath of their ignorance.
And if anyone tells you
that your existence is an offense to their God,
look them in the eyes, and tell them:
“My father (who art in Devon) taught me
that love doesn’t need permission.”
We died.
Which is wild
because death is way too organized
for something that dramatic.
Clipboards.
Carbon copies.
A final “sign here please”
on the dotted line of our chests.
Turns out
“‘til death do us part”
wasn’t a metaphor –
it was a legally binding break-up clause.
Nobody warned me that love came
with terms and conditions.
Nobody told me that forever
had an asterisk the size of a heartbeat.
So now we’re single.
Technically.
Same café.
Same chipped mug.
Because habits are harder to kill than people,
and my heart still orders caffeine
like it never got the obituary.
You hover by the almond milk
like a multiple-choice question
we both answered wrong,
while we were alive.
You say, “hey!”
that thin, careful syllable
people use
when they’re not sure
they’re allowed to miss you yet.
Half-ghost.
Half-regret.
All the years we never unpacked.
You ask if I want to get coffee sometime…
like we didn’t already share toothbrushes,
like eternity didn’t just hit
the reset button
and hand us amnesia with good lighting.
I laugh… and
spill my whole damn soul on the counter.
Then say something stupid.
Because love has always turned me
into a human typo.
I say,
“Only if you’re buying”.
And just like that,
we’re dating again.
Not because we’re lonely.
Not because we’re scared of the silence.
But because even death
looked at us and said,
“Yeah… I don’t know where to file this”.
Some loves just don’t end.
They only lose their bodies;
learn how to haunt politely,
and keep showing up
Because the universe
forgot to evict them.
(c)BobChristian
Today the stores are full of flowers
wrapped in plastic smiles.
Card aisles rehearsing a script
about what a mother is supposed to be—
soft hands, warm hugs,
unconditional
written in pink cursive like it’s a guarantee.
But I know kids
who learned the word mum
by pointing
at someone
who didn’t give birth to them.
And nobody prints cards for that.
Nobody prints a card that says:
Thank you for staying
when leaving
would’ve been easier.
Or:
Thank you for showing up to the parent-teacher conference
while the teacher keeps calling you aunt…
like love only counts
if the DNA matches.
Some people think motherhood
is biology.
Like it’s hidden in blood cells,
stitched into last names,
certified by hospital bracelets.
But I’ve seen mothers
who never stepped foot in a delivery room.
I’ve seen mothers
learning to braid hair at midnight
from a YouTube tutorial
because the kid needed it done
in the morning.
I’ve seen mothers
working double shifts
then coming home
to help with the homework
they never got the chance
to finish themselves.
I’ve seen mothers
who were really grandmothers,
neighbours,
big sisters,
step-parents,
foster parents,
teachers with extra snacks in their desk
for the kid who swore they “weren’t hungry.”
I’ve seen mothers
in rain-soaked bleachers
screaming that’s my kid
with a voice loud enough
to argue with the whole world.
Because motherhood
is not nine months.
It’s the years after.
It’s packed lunches.
Late-night talks.
Text me when you get there.
I’m proud of you.
Tiny sentences
that stitch courage
into a child’s spine.
So today,
if you celebrate Mother’s Day
celebrate the woman who stayed.
The one who made space at the table.
The one who learned your fears
like a second language.
The one who chose you
again
and again
and again.
Because blood
might start a family.
But love—
love is the hands that stayed
long after the world said
they didn’t have to.
That’s a mother.
Even if the hospital
never wrote her name down.
(c)BobChristian
Last year I entered the Dark Poets Prize IV, with a poem called “The Garden Stirs”.
This is the sequel to my award-winning piece, called “The Eternal Garden of Shadows”.
Both of these pieces are part of my Life of Shadows series, which is currently a collection of seven poems, and I am adding to it at the moment.
I’m pleased to say that “The Garden Stirs” earned me a shortlist spot with the Dark Poets Club.
Peace is a liar.
It wears a mask of soil and silence,
But beneath the garden, something breathes.
Not worms. Not rot.
Something that remembers my hands.
The farmhouse walls groan in tones too close to your voice.
At night, I hear footfalls in the hall…
Not the echo of my own,
But yours, dragging like broken promises.
The mirror is the first traitor.
Where once I saw resolve, now your grin.
Eyes black, glistening with remembered laughter,
The kind that came before pain,
Before the belts, the cellar, the ‘lessons’.
I dug your grave deep,
But the earth is a poor keeper of secrets.
It whispers at dusk,
Sings lullabies in your tone, off-key and venomous.
I burn sage. Salt. Books. My skin.
Nothing stops the smell of you:
Leather, sweat, basement mildew,
The musk of unholy patience
As you waited for me to cry.
I found dirt on the floor by my bed.
Handprints leading to the wall.
No child’s, no animal’s.
The shape is familiar
I remember those fingers around my throat.
Your voice is bolder now.
Less whisper, more command.
You tell me I did it wrong
That the grave is yours, but the punishment is mine.
I weep. The house shakes with laughter.
I no longer sleep. I dig.
Every night, the same garden.
The same screams.
Not from below
From me.
And the earth is getting soft again.
Something’s trying to come through.
Not worms. Not rot.
Something that remembers my hands.
(c)BobChristian
Years ago, I learned some truly shocking statistics about suicide—800,000 lives lost every year. That’s one life every 40 seconds. It’s a deeply uncomfortable topic, but it’s one we can’t keep ignoring.
The truth is, suicide is the leading cause of death for men between 20 and 49. And while this affects all men, over 60% of newly-diagnosed autistic adults report having suicidal thoughts.
These numbers are devastating. We’re finally starting to talk more about mental health, but there’s so much more to be done to prevent people from reaching that point. To remind them they’re not alone.
I nearly became a fucking statistic so many times.
“This Poem Ends Every 40 Seconds”
Every forty seconds
someone ends their own life.
Not a metaphor.
Not a number on a website.
A person.
A real human soul
punched out like a clock card,
because the noise in their head
was louder than any help ever offered.
Forty seconds.
By the time you finish reading this stanza,
someone else is gone.
But we don’t talk about it.
Not really.
We whisper it behind closed doors,
use soft words
like “passed away,”
or “lost them,”
as if they just wandered off into the woods
and forgot to come home.
Mental illness is still a dirty word.
Still something we hide in drawers
with old medication bottles
and family secrets.
We tell people
to “reach out”
but give them nothing to grab onto.
We applaud strength
but punish vulnerability.
We ask, “How are you?”
but only want to hear
“I’m Fine.”
We romanticize broken artists
but ignore the broken people
in our inboxes.
At our dinner tables.
In the mirror.
Some of us scream with silence.
Perfectly dressed.
Perfectly functional.
Perfectly invisible.
The truth is
we lose more people
to quiet despair
than to war or violence.
And still,
we treat therapy like a confession booth,
instead of healthcare.
Still,
we treat emotion like weakness,
and stoicism like bravery.
It’s not brave
to bottle the storm.
It’s brave
to name it.
To say, “I’m not okay.”
To cry in daylight.
To take meds,
see a shrink,
open the wound
and not apologise for bleeding.
If you think this is heavy,
good.
It’s fucking supposed to be.
Because someone you love
is already counting the seconds.
And they don’t need a pep talk.
They need
a world that listens
before the silence becomes permanent.
(c)BobChristian
The Ramblings of Bob Christian 