Seven years ago, I wrote a poem.

I had no idea then that it would become my first published poem.

It was my first poem, the first poem I ever read aloud in public (well outside my comfort zone), and now my first published poem.

When I wrote it, I wasn’t thinking about publication. I was simply trying to make sense of a deeply traumatic experience through words.

Looking back, it feels fitting that my first publication is also my first poem. Creative work often begins quietly. We make something because we need to, and only later do we realise where it has been leading us.

I’m delighted that Strong Abdominal Muscles has found a home in Flare Issue 31 and that I had the opportunity to read it again at The Sunflower Sessions in the Lord Edward last Thursday.

This poem reminds me that we don’t always understand the full significance of the things we make when we make them.

When I wrote it, I knew it mattered. Not because I imagined it would one day be published, but because it helped me transform a deeply traumatic experience into words. That transformation felt important.

Only now, looking back, can I see it was also the beginning of something else.

My first poem wasn’t just about making sense of one experience.

It was the beginning of discovering what creativity and poetry would come to mean in my life.