Laughing With My Mouth Full is a celebration of joy in its most visceral, unfiltered form—the kind of joy that doesn't ask permission or wait to be observed. It’s about revelling in the messiness of being alive, about choosing presence over perfection, flavour over formality. This poem is for the women who live vividly, who taste every moment, who dare to take up space and sound and sensation without apology. It’s for the ones who laugh mid-bite, who spill wine while storytelling, who know that elegance isn’t silence—it’s the art of fully inhabiting your life. This is a love letter to embodied joy, and a refusal to ever quiet it down. 💚

This poem is about a moment I’ll never forget—standing outside a courtroom, raw and rattled, after being forced to sit through lies meant to break me. It’s about the man who met me there, not just with love, but with fury on my behalf. My husband has always seen me clearly, even when others tried to distort the view. What He Said To Me After Court is a tribute to that kind of love—the kind that holds you upright when you’re shaking, that speaks truth over you when the world tries to bury you in falsehoods. This poem is what it feels like to be chosen, again and again, by someone who sees all of you and still says, “You are worth it.” 💚

This poem is for my sister—the one I left behind when I ran. I didn’t mean to leave her. I was running from pain, from damage, from a past that threatened to drown me if I didn’t break free. But in saving myself, I also abandoned the people who loved me most. It took me years to return, to find the courage to reach out, to ask if there was still space for me in her life. Her forgiveness was a gift I can never repay—only honour, with love and presence and truth. This poem is my heart laid bare. It’s the apology I’ve carried for too long, and the gratitude that spills over every time I remember what it means to be welcomed home. 💚

This poem is a declaration—for every person who has fought to outgrow the limitations of their upbringing, only to be met with resentment instead of recognition. It’s for those of us who have had to claw our way out of generational dysfunction, who have risen not in spite of where we came from, but because we refused to stay there. They Will Not Hold Me Here is both a condemnation and a liberation. It’s a reminder that we are not defined by the people who couldn’t love us well. That our success, our joy, and our unapologetic voices are not betrayals—they are revolutions. And when we rise, we don’t rise alone. 💚

This poem is an ode to the kind of love that doesn’t shout, but shows up—in flour-dusted countertops, in buttery dough pressed into stars and hearts, in the quiet patience of a mother guiding tiny hands. My mother’s shortbreads weren’t just cookies. They were her way of loving out loud without ever needing to raise her voice. What began as a gift for one became a tradition that wrapped around our family like warmth in winter. Even now, long after I lost her original recipe, I carry the essence of those moments with me—each stolen bite of dough, each Christmas spent baking, a memory etched into my bones. This poem is for her. For the sweetness she stirred into my childhood. And for the little ones I now hold close, so they’ll always know that love is in the doing, in the giving, in the small, sacred acts we pass down. 💚

This poem is a tribute to my mother—her quiet care, her unseen sacrifices, and the way love can be folded into something as simple as a jar of homemade apple butter. It’s about the sweetness of being known and chosen, even in small ways, and the ache of watching that light dim under the weight of belittlement and misogyny. As I grow older, I find myself revisiting these memories with fresh eyes, wishing I had understood then what I know now. This poem holds my gratitude, my regret, and my hope that she felt my love, even when I didn’t yet have the words. 💚

This one’s for the girls who were born loud, bold, and unafraid—even when the world tried to hush them. Feminist by Birthright is a joyful, defiant anthem for every woman who didn’t become a feminist, but always was one—before she had the words for it, before she even knew why the rules felt so wrong. This poem celebrates inherited fire, unshakable power, and the unbreakable rhythm of rising, again and again, with joy in our hearts and steel in our spines. It's for the ones who lead, love, cry, rage, build, and blaze—all on their own terms. Because we weren't given a seat at the table. We built our own. 💚

There’s something sacred about building a life with your own two hands. The kind of life that doesn’t just happen, but is carved from intention, sweat, vision, and relentless love. When the Work Is Worth It is a poem for the builders—for the ones who rise early, stay late, and pour every ounce of themselves into something bigger. It’s for the women who dream in blueprints and believe in effort, for the partners who create together, for the families who lay foundations in laughter and legacy. This poem is a celebration of the bruises, the breakthroughs, the beauty in the blisters. Because when it’s done with love? The work isn’t just worth it—it’s everything.

There are places that leave their mark—not just on your passport, but on your soul. Passport Pages and Crocodile Smiles is a love letter to every wild, wonderful adventure that has shaped me. It’s for the saltwater days, the rainforest stumbles, the ancient animals with knowing eyes, and the man who held my hand through every one of them. This poem is for the ink-stamped proof that we were there—in love, in awe, in motion. It’s for the laughter that echoes across oceans, the vows spoken in sea breeze, and the thunderstorm flights that led us safely home. These aren’t just trips. They’re chapters. And this poem is the story they wrote in my heart.

There’s a kind of strength that isn’t loud. It doesn’t flex or posture—it just shows up, day after day, in the early mornings, in the aching hands, in the quiet determination to keep going even when no one’s watching. Sweaty But Never Done is a love letter to that kind of woman. To the builders and dreamers, the mothers and makers, the ones who carry the weight of it all and still find a way to move forward. This poem is a tribute to relentless spirit, to hustle with heart, to the beauty of doing the hard thing because it matters. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about being present. Tired, yes. Sweaty, always. But never, ever done.

Life Moves On (And So Did I) is a quiet but devastating rejection of a narcissist’s last, desperate hope—that they still hold space in my life, that their presence lingers, that their name carries weight. But the truth is simple: they are nothing to me. This poem is not about anger or even closure—it’s about the sheer, undeniable irrelevance of someone who once believed themselves to be permanent. Time has erased them, memory has abandoned them, and I have stepped forward into a life where they do not exist. Because in the end, the greatest insult to a narcissist isn’t hatred—it’s indifference.

An Ode to Writing is my love letter to the craft that has shaped me, sustained me, and given me purpose. Writing isn’t just something I do—it’s the heartbeat beneath everything, the thread that weaves my thoughts into something tangible, the magic that turns fleeting ideas into something that lasts. This poem is a tribute to the power of words, to the late nights spent lost in creation, to the way a blank page feels like possibility rather than emptiness. Writing is my greatest gift, my greatest joy, and I will never stop writing.

Let’s be honest—writing is not for everyone. Some people try, bless their hearts, but the words just… sit there, lifeless, like a bad haircut on a humid day. Meanwhile, I? I wield the written word like a divine right. Some people are born to run marathons, some to paint masterpieces, and some (tragically) to do their taxes on time. But me? I was chosen—anointed by the literary gods—to turn mere ink into art. The Gift of the Word (And Lucky Me, I Have It) is a completely humble and not-at-all self-absorbed reflection on the rare, almost mythical power of writing well—a power that I, of course, possess. If this poem offends, don’t blame me. Blame talent.

The Gift in My Hands is a love letter to my craft, to the words that have shaped my life, and to the extraordinary privilege of building a career from the thing I was born to do. Writing isn’t just a job—it’s the pulse beneath my skin, the fire in my bones, the magic that turns thought into something tangible. This poem is my gratitude made lyrical, my deep, unwavering appreciation for the mastery I’ve honed since 2011, for the worlds I’ve built, and for the truth behind every cliché—when you do what you love, it never feels like work. Writing is not just my career. It is my calling.

The Weight He Never Carried is a Pantoum that captures the cruel imbalance between the bully who forgets and the person who must live with what was done to them. The structure of the Pantoum, with its repeating lines, mirrors the way trauma loops endlessly in the mind of the person who was hurt, while the one who inflicted it walks away without a second thought. This poem explores the weight of that erasure, the injustice of carrying pain that the bully never has to acknowledge. It is about the silence that lingers, the echoes that remain, and the suffocating truth that while he can move on without consequence, the damage does not disappear with him.

You Don’t Get to Be Over It is a spoken word poem about the staggering selfishness of bullies who claim they’ve “moved on” while the people they tormented are still clawing their way out of the wreckage. It’s about the absurdity of expecting someone to simply “get over” the damage inflicted upon them, as if pain works on the same timeline as the person who caused it. The bully walks away clean, weightless, forgetting the harm as easily as they inflicted it—but the person they hurt is left with the aftermath, the echoes, the scars. This poem is a refusal to let that injustice go unspoken. It is a declaration that you don’t get to be over it when you were never the one who had to live with it.

This Is Why I Hate You is not just a poem—it’s a reckoning. It’s a battle cry for every person who has ever been pushed to the edges, erased from the narrative, made to feel like they were nothing by the calculated cruelty of someone who wore a smile while holding a knife behind their back. This is for the ones who were excluded, whispered about, lied to, and lied about. The ones who woke up one day to find that their world had turned against them, that friendships had soured like spoiled milk, that their name had become a punchline to a joke they were never in on. This poem is fury without apology. It is the ache of betrayal, the weight of being left out, the deep and lingering damage of a bully who has long since moved on, while their target still carries the scars. It is everything left unsaid, everything swallowed down, now spat back out in fire and fury.

Aging is one of life’s greatest betrayals. One minute, you’re effortlessly keeping up with trends, wearing skinny jeans without fear, and understanding pop culture references with ease—and the next, you’re squinting at your phone, wondering when all your favourite bands became dad rock, and hearing the words classic Taylor Swift applied to an album that came out like yesterday. Am I So Five Minutes Ago? is a humorous, slightly existential reflection on the absurdity of aging as a millennial, from stubbornly clinging to side parts and invisible socks to the creeping realization that the world has moved on without us. It’s a lighthearted, darkly funny take on the moment you realize you’re no longer the target audience, but rather, an observer—one with aching knees, deep nostalgia, and an unshakable devotion to grey home decor.

Leaving one home for another is never just a journey—it is a reckoning of the heart. The Repatriation of Me is a reflection on the bittersweet reality of returning to Canada, a country I love deeply and am endlessly proud to call home, while leaving behind the chosen family that made Australia feel like home, too. It is a love letter to the wild beauty of this land—the mountains, the lakes, the endless trails where we wander with Sophie at our side. It is a celebration of new beginnings, of planting roots in a place where we can build a future, of embracing the values that shape this country we cherish. But it is also an acknowledgment of loss, of distance, of the ache that lingers when love is stretched across oceans. This poem holds the weight of both—joy and sorrow, gratitude and longing—because home is never just one place. It is the pieces we gather along the way, the love that remains no matter how far we go.