This is a very touchy subject, it’s also one that people feel uncomfortable having, which can lead to self harm even suicide. I myself am a survivor & as such I wished I’d spoken out at the time. Silence Is what these creatures depend on, so while you may feel like you can’t tell anyone, you’ll thank yourself in the future. BC x

Hearts is racing, it’s beating,
Trying to escape My chest.
Fighting to breathe, trying

To catch my breath, it slips
Through sweat drenched
Palms. I can’t calm down

I’m terrified. Although you,
Maybe unable to see, it’s
Eating away at me, slowly

Clamps it’s hands over my
Lips. Forcing me to silence,
So I can never speak out.

About
The things you did

Today is a very special day… Mrs Bob & I literally tied the knot. Although we were legally married over nine years ago, we wanted to renew our vows and so we had a handfasting ceremony today. If you’re unfamiliar with the term then allow me to explain..

A handfasting is an ancient European ceremony of betrothal or wedding that dates back to pre-Medieval times and usually involves the tying or binding of the hands of the bride and groom with a cord or ribbon. Such ceremonies are widely practised in the pagan community.

I wrote a heartfelt scribble, which also turned out to be my vows to Mrs Bob. So to my wonderful wife, friend, co-author of my autobiography and soulmate, I give you “These Hands”.

These Hands

These hands holding yours,
Will always show you love,
Kindness, comfort, safety and
Refuge from life’s many storms

I’ll use these hands to build
Our future together as one,
Holding you, caressing you…
Only you, like no other has.

These hands will give you
Strength when you’re weary,
Motivation and support as
You chase your dreams.

Until wrinkled by the ages,
I will always be reaching
Out to you, with silent comfort
With just a single touch.

May we grow old together
As do the stars.
May we, like the sun,
Light each other’s days

Until we rest at last
In that eternal night,
Together. Twin flames,
Burning as one.

Step right up!
No
Sit.
Still.
Swallow your popcorn
and your pride.
The lights are low,
but the lies?
Blinding.

Welcome
to the circus of smoke and spin,
where the tent’s stitched together
with stretched truths and
narratives thinner than tightropes.

You want a show?

Boom
Contortionists
twisting facts ‘til they snap,
bending reality like it owes them rent.

Bang
Limbo dancers
sliding under the bar of basic decency,
dropping lower than your standards,
dodging blame like it’s a dodgeball tournament.

Flash
Sleight of hand!
Watch them shuffle guilt
into your pocket
and call it your idea.
Watch the trick:
Truth disappears,
only to reappear
when it’s convenient.

Yeah
All this, and more,
from the comfort of your own delusion.

Is this the greatest show on Earth?
Or just
a sold-out spectacle
playing on loop
inside your mind?

Limelight

I wish I could go back
to when you didn’t
even know my name—
when I was a ghost
and that felt like freedom.

Now I’m trapped
in a spotlight that hums like a hospital light,
buzzing, relentless—
a nightmare with good PR.

Sleepless nights
lick me down to bone.
Burnt out like a streetlamp
flickering through its own exhaustion.
I thought this would make me happy.
Thought applause could cauterize depression.

Turns out
clapping hands
don’t drown out
the sound of your own mind
breaking into itself.

I watch my illness
in real time—
front row seat
to the unraveling.
Can’t even lie:
I miss when time felt
like it belonged to me,
not the audience.

Now you’re waiting.
Aren’t you?

Waiting for the relapse.
For the headline.
For me to fall back
into the “old me”
like that version
was easier to digest.

You made up your minds
before I opened mine.
Before you saw
how I am now—
tired like gravity,
insecure like a cracked mirror,
dying in small, polite installments.

I miss when I didn’t
have my therapist
on speed dial—
thumb hovering
like a prayer I don’t believe in.

Scared to explain
how I feel
because feelings turn into spectacle
if you hold them up too long.

So instead—
I reach for a tablet.
Small, white surrender.

While you poke holes
in the life raft,
call it critique,
call it concern,
call it love.

And I’m just here—
trying to float
without turning
my drowning
into your entertainment.

(c)BobChristian

To all the victims of these ville creatures, i stand with you. While yelling fuck off back into the darkness you crawled out of you pathetic pos, to those who dwell under these digital bridges…

Once upon a time,
Fairytales told us that your
Kind hid under bridges;
Away from the decent
Folk in the kingdom.

Plotting your revenge;
Trying to crush our
Spirits; our dreams.
Hoping it will make
Your life feel whole.

Cloaked in your pain;
Sadness keeping you
Company while you lie
In wait; poised, ready to
Strike your next victim,

Feeding on each one.
Hoping that this meal
Will satisfy the hunger.
Filling the void where
Your heart should be.

Claws wrapping around
Each of your intended
Victims, while they
Desperately plead for
Deliverance from you.

Parents unable to protect
Their precious young ones.
Monsters no longer lurk
In cupboards or under beds;
Now, they’re much closer.

Times have changed.
Your kind have swapped your
Clip-clop bridges for basements
With Wi-Fi; trying to destroy
All our happy ever afters.

Just Stop.

In a darkened room I sit
The tools of my trade
Precisely laid out like
Scalpels before a surgeon.

Even if they are not physical,
They have the same effect;
Cutting, healing maybe,
Sometimes even saving a life.

What are these tools of mine?
How can they do such things?
Much more than a pen; my words are
Sharper than any knife you’ll know.

My thoughts upon hearing someone tell me to “Cheer up”

1) Fuck off.

2) If I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that, I could afford that one therapy session that finally works.

3) Why do you say this stupid phrase? It’s as messed up and idiotic as telling someone to walk off a broken ankle.

4) If you want to question my thoughts and feelings, like you know my whole story, then don’t bother. Not everything can be solved with the phrase CHEER UP.

5) You cannot pray me out of this neurochemical state of depression and anxiety with some magical words. If it were scientifically possible, don’t you think I’d have tried that?

6) CHEER UP. Sorry, what’s that? I just need to get out more and party? How? By holding aloft my magic bottle and chanting the magical words CHEER UP I’m suddenly transformed into PARTY MAN? A happy, more confident, less anxious version of me?

7) How many men, women and sadly children must attempt to or sadly take their own lives before we realise that a cocktail of chemicals and that great verbal anti-depressant CHEER UP doesn’t work. We need real conversations not medications.

Shadow Boxing

Ladies and gentlemen,
gather round,
tonight’s the big fight,
a no-holds-barred spectacle,
where the only rules
are the ones we make
inside our heads.

Look at me,
cowering in the red corner,
210 pounds of flesh and fear—
but that’s a lie,
because when you count
the weight of life’s problems,
I’m crushed under a mountain,
each issue a stone,
a boulder on my chest.

And there,
in the opposite corner,
the challenger,
a heavyweight I can’t shake off,
weighing in at nights that stretch on forever,
and moments that feel like drowning.
It’s a darkness that knows my name,
a shadow creeping from the corners
of my mind,
called Depression,
ready to pin me down,
ready to whisper that I’m not enough.

This is the fight
we don’t choose,
the one that plays out
when the lights go dim,
and the audience disappears,
leaving me alone
with my own fists
and the echo of my doubts.
Tonight, it’s just me,
in this ring,
against the weight of everything.

(c)BobChristian2022