Our writing

Anti-Valentines

For our first call for submission, we asked students to respond to the theme of Anti-Valentines: creative pieces that explore the clichés of the celebration in a new light. From directly questioning these clichés to exploring the darker side of relationships, these pieces will make you think about what love really means.

Friday the 14th
By Oliver Purnell

Petals dry, fall and die.

crumbling into a cacophony,

of lost love      what was-

what could’ve been…

what wasn’t and what didn’t

happen to me. Happen for me.

It never happened for that little boy,

mini me.

Chocolate roses scoffed by the unintended.

Arriving to and leaving her door                    alone.

Frost tickled extremities wipe away

crystalised sorrow,

liquefied loneliness.

She never gave him the time of day.

He gave her every second he didn’t have to spare.

She Means Everything to Me
By Grey Key

Trigger Warning: Suicide

Winter lies in bed scrolling through Tik Tok, a mindless hunt for dopamine; cats purring, Stardew Valley tips, Arcane behind the scenes, drag queens’ eyeliner advice. Each hit barely makes a dent in the steel web.

Her phone chimes.

Essay Deadline

Fresh dread rises in her stomach. Sluggishly she rolls to look at the paper piled on her desk. No, no essays they just make it worse. Feeling the web tighten, Winter reaches under the pillow for her vibrator. Better she smiles much better.

Endorphins running high, she puts on her headphones. Flicking through Spotify songs to get her out of bed. Eminem? Too angry. Raye? I don’t wanna cry. Sabrina Carpenter blasts through her headphones and Winter looks towards the neglected essays. Nodding her head to the beat, she shuffles towards the edge of the bed. The song changes, She by Dodie; they always listened to it together.

Right here in these sheets, Isla would lie on her lap humming and looking up to her with grey eyes like swirling mist. Isla would whisper the lyrics ‘she means everything to me,’ curling closer around Winter with each word; painted lips leaving black smudges across her skin, Isla’s earthy fragrance stronger with each movement.
            As the tears fall, Winter indulges further in the pain. She visits Isla’s Instagram profile, hoping to find a museum of their past. She searches for the exhibits of their picnics lying under leaf-fall or art gallery trips where she admired Isla studying the paintings. Instead, she finds Isla kissing a new girl. Below the photograph, in between musical notes are the words:

‘She means everything to me’

Winter slumps down, surrendering to the web.

Credit: Grey Key

Her phone buzzes like a trapped fly. A stream of texts from Matthias flashes on the screen.

heyyy it’s been ages get online our farms dying

(please)

hope you’re okay I heard about Isla x

Seeing Isla’s name stings but Winter smiles, I thought he’d forgotten me. With a grunt she rolls out of bed onto stiff limbs. Ducking under the desk, she turns on her pc. Fans whir to life and a purple glow settles across the room. The Dell logo appears, and she stares willing it to load faster. Finally, the logo fades and her fingers move thoughtlessly, flying through passwords. Discord boots up and she calls Matthias; fidgeting with her hair until his face comes into view.

‘Winnie! Nice to see you, let’s get this farm back on track.’

Hatchet Job
By Efa Williams

He lays beneath me as I stand above him, hatchet in hand and a vengeance in my heart. Red mist clouds my vision. Red like a blazing inferno dancing through a forest, like a blinding alarm warning people of danger, like a fresh wound that desperately needs a plaster. I am so close to finishing what I came here to do. I must complete my wish. I can complete it. I trained for this, and I loved. Every. Last. Second. Of it.

    “Love conquers all” my ass. All love does is lead to destruction. It rips your heart out and wrings it dry of feeling. It makes you feel small and pathetic, broken and weak. It makes me seem like an idiot. An idiot who let the wrong person in, who stripped myself bare in front of them, who discussed their desires and dreams, their wishes and plans with them, who fell foolishly in love, so foolishly in fact that the promise of a ring was what woke me up in the morning, motivated my actions and put me to sleep at night.

    I see his face.

    Why am I thinking of him now? It cannot be happening now. I need to complete my job now. I must. I do not want that anymore – that mindless celebration of love and affection. I do not want him anymore, or rather, he did not want me. How dare he not want me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with him? Did I do something wrong? Was it all wrong? Tears fight their way through my eyelids and the thoughts pummel through my mind. How dare he have this hold over me. I must complete this plan.

    I bury the hatchet into him one final time and the job is done. Cupid is no longer. He is dead. He is as dead as the love that once inhabited, festered and brutally murdered my heart.

    He lays splayed out with his wings laying either side, broken and weak. I take the liberty of fracturing the wings as soon as he hits the floor. His arrows are now snapped, and his bow is split in two. Two parts, exactly like the broken hearts he and his foolish connotations are answerable for.

    He had to pay for what he did to me.

February Valentine
By Alexa Appleford

Flowers and chocolate-laden Valentines

declarations of love and lust,

but why the fuck in February?

When everything’s grey, tired and bleak,

blasted by wind or doused

in dank rain.

If we’re lucky, some snow

might lighten the gloom,

before thawing

into floods to soak through

tar-lifting potholes.

Power lines cut,

causing havoc with dates.

Is Cupid laughing at us

as we slip and slide

around snotty rosy noses

congested with cold.

Cosmetic-killing sneezing

and coughing, and wheezing.

Sores of red blooms perched on lips

a reminder

of love eternal, forever and ever

and ever and ever

and ever

and ever

and fucking ever.

February, Cupid,

you are having a laugh.

Fucking February.

Flowers
By Amber Clay

 Today was alarmingly calm. No birds flew in the sky. No contrails striping the grey. No people crowding the streets.

Emilia wasn't sure what she was hoping for when waking up but silence certainly wasn't it. Perhaps a sky of pink and candy clouds in the shape of hearts, pancakes for breakfast that spelt out ‘I LOVE YOU’ accompanied by her favourite red berries, a flower petal path leading to an arrangement of candle lit balloons and chocolates where he would stand centre. So much for wishful thinking.

Untangling themselves from the blankets that bind her, Emilia made her own breakfast. There were no pancakes and berries but porridge came an appropriate second. Besides this early in the morning it was about all her stomach could manage. Somehow both thick and watery she threw the remaining massacred gruel into the sink and made way for the day.

Shower.

Dress.

Clean.

Read.

It was no use distracting herself when after every task her mind would wander to the same person which could only mean one thing. It was time to see him. Bundled in a fuzzy coat and heavy set boots she stalked over to the car, slammed shut with force and reversing with a jolt. It was just as good there were no people on the road as she weaved furiously through lanes, jumping over speed bumps like a stallion on a race course; puddles decimated under their wheels. Mind set on one thing it was almost impossible to break Emilia's determination. Almost. After spotting an advertisement painted in red with kisses her foot loosened on the gas and she turned back pulling into a small service station. The girl at the register looked how she felt. Hunched against the counter held up only by the arm under her chin, long hair tumbling from her once clean pony tail, eyes shadowed with black. She completely disregarded Emilia as she walked in which in part was welcomed. Unenergetically she reached with hesitant hands for a white card bearing the image of two bees as well as a bouquet of flowers.

Paying was fast and soon she was back on the road at a slower speed. This time it was as if tar coated the wheels or she was towing a house behind her. But driving slowly could only stall so much time. Emilia sat outside his building with a backflipping stomach, stinging eyes and fury in her heart. She took a deep breath. She walked inside.

Inside was easy to navigate now. Corridors sickly white, all encompassing. Then she was in his room. There he lay. Tubes entered his mouth and wires hooked to a monitor that beeped. His eyes were shut, shadowed in red. Lips cracked like a desert. Face paled further by the blankets. This is why she dreaded February 14th. There were no cards addressed for boyfriends in comas.

The Feeling of a Bruised Heart
By Loki Wilson

It’s too late for this. He writes left-handed and smudges ink over his parchment as he writes. He has to get the words out. Has to write them down, see them in black on white on the page. For him, it is the easiest way. 

His sister would scoff at that, he’s sure, but she’s always been the more mature one. He’s never been good at expressing himself, has always shied away from the sensitivity it requires, has always hidden from his feelings. 

He doesn’t know when he started hiding them, what feeling he buried first in the coffin he calls a heart, but he does remember swallowing back the tears at his mother’s funeral. 

He told himself that men don’t cry, that if he was strong, he would not weep. He lived by that for the next few years. They were locked away from him, hidden in the depths of his mind, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever truly find them again. 

He’d thought he had when he was with Clarissa, though looking back, he was even blinder then than he was as a child. At the time he’d thought himself in love, but who knows. Maybe that feeling wasn’t love at all. If it was, they never said how much it hurt. 

And now… now his heart is scarred, his knuckles are bloody, and the words spill out of him and onto the page. They flow easily, etching themselves onto the parchment. 

And so he writes out those feelings too, until they’ve taken shape in eloquent lines on the page. He doesn’t bury his emotions anymore, but he doesn’t share them either. At least, not with other humans. 

These sheaves of parchment are the only ones privy to his innermost thoughts; when he’s struggling, he sits in this chair and tells them his troubles. They’re good at listening, and there is no judgement in their gentle silence. 

Now he knows that strength is staring at your reflection in the mirror, seeing the imperfections, and accepting them. He still finds it hard to view himself and his feelings openly, and he’s not sure he does it right. But he does it. 

He sets the pen down and leans back in his chair, fingers aching. He’s exhausted, but the writing has calmed him. 

And when he walks away from the desk, he leaves the ink-smudged pages there to wait patiently for dawn. 

If you’re interested in submitting to future calls for submission, please keep an eye on the Our Writing section of the Creative Writing website.

In celebration of national poetry month, we asked students of the Creative Writing department to send in their original words. Below, you’ll find a wide variety of structures, themes, and images that showcase the diversity and complexity of Creative Writing at Keele.

The World from Two Perspectives by Aubrey Noggler

Pollution and steam
Is worth more than
The environment's health
Yet no one can see
The Earth is dying
You can't convince me otherwise
The billionaires in the industrial business
Can stop
The destruction of their factories
You can try and argue that
The Earth can be saved.

Now read it from the bottom up.

The Tower by Loki Wilson

The mountains are tall, the snow is white
High is the wall, black is the night
The air, biting cold, nips at flesh;
From the bitter chill, there is no rest
The wind howls across the landscape
And from the slope rises a solitary shape
A tall, dark, twisted tower
Upon the land it seems to glower
Frost coats the old grey stones
A hollow corpse of granite bones
And at the foot of the cadaver
Is a small figure, dark and shadowy
The ruined castle is cloaked in white
But he wears cape of blackest night
For he knows this castle did no crime
But was torn by the ravages of time
He recalls a grand, majestic sight
Not this crumbling ruin, marred with blight
So he climbs the mountain every year
And every year, he sheds a tear
For the solitary tower, bleak and tall
For he knows this is the fate that awaits us all

Haircuts by Alexa Appleford

I wanted an Action Man with Velcro hair    
I got Sindy instead. 
She can’t fight or climb mountains,
drive tanks or shoot guns.
She is odd. A strange shape,
And daft clothes.

Snip, snip. New outfit. 
The jacket won’t close.
It’ll do, cos he’s ready to fight.
Prepared for adventure.
Offbeat but assured.
A Commando, he’s proud. 
So am I.

It’s a shame all problems 
aren’t so easy to fix. 
An infant’s solution, 
just change. 
Accept the challenge,
adapt and create
Something new, not perfect?
What is?

Stuck by Oliver Purnell

And the white sky is writing love
letters to my sombre self.
The words are written on my skin.
Miles of notes scribbled away,
so much so the pencil tip snapped.
Forever dulled by what was said and
done.
And the pen that replaced it was
leaky. It smudged and distorted the
message. Splotchy paper is a sight
that makes eyes sore.

Parasite by Grey Key

Remember when it first took hold?
Roots piercing your stomach,
shoots climbing your throat,
leaves cluttering your mind.
A hostage to be pulled and pushed as it desires. 
Steadily, it grows.

Escape projected onto a screen,
rustling fingers search for popcorn.
The tender warmth of your lover’s hand.
It shrinks, withers for a moment you return.
Later, it grows.

Headlights stain the night with streaks of orange,
droplets dot your blurred eyes.
Thoughts of your lover provide fleeting warmth.
Eager, it grows.

Distractions and thrills, a fistful of pills,
one foot on the sill
because it grows.

You can't forsake their warmth, 
don't let it grow.

First Day

The first day of anything can be frightening. A new job, a new house, university. But these changes can equally be exciting, inspiring, even necessary for growth in our lives. The following pieces feature a range of responses to the idea of ‘the first day,’ and all of the emotions that accompany change.

The Rest of Your Life Begins 

With tears that fall one by one, 

as you wake from your nightmare. 

Except you don’t wake from it; 

you wake into it.  

You set two plates for breakfast, 

cook two meals, then sit down  

at the small table with two seats. 

You eat twice.  

You sit in the house. Listening. 

There’s no sound of footfalls. 

No shower running or toilet flushing. 

The silent echoes of laughter 

are all that’s left. 

This is how it’ll be now; 

for the rest of your life.  

Just you and a spare set of keys. 

Orianna Thorn

Lady of the Pond 

I sit overlooking the pond, watching a duck as it bobs beneath the water. I hold my breath, hoping it doesn’t emerge, wishing it could be me lost beyond the ripples. It breaks the surface. I suck in the dry summer air and a headache swells behind my eyes. Serves you right, I think. I offer a handful of oats to the duck, it doesn’t take them, like it knows what I’m thinking. My daughter would be disgusted. 

The next morning, I stand at the pond’s edge, oats in hand. It still doesn’t take them. I gaze into the depths feeling her pull— a runner’s patter on gravel breaks her grasp. 

‘Hi, may I?’ She gestures to the oats in my hand. 

I nod and she picks them one at a time between her glossy nails. The duck eats happily from her while she smiles, sweat shimmering on her upper lip. I chew on my bitten stubs of nail; her blonde hair is pulled up in a ponytail just like my daughter’s always was and she wears that same vanilla scent. As she jogs away, I think about the bottom of the pond and its soft soil bed. 

It’s a winter evening, a long time since I last visited the pond. I tried to stay away but she kept calling. Ankle-deep in the water listening to her cries, I wade deeper. A flash of blonde catches my eye. I shuffle out of the shadowed pond.  

‘Have you got a tissue, love?’ I ask, wiping a mascara-stained tear from my cheek. She doesn’t recognise me but smiles and unslings her rucksack. As she crouches over, my hands wrap around her neck. We tumble to the floor but I don’t let go, not until she's still. Later that night, I offer her to the pond in my place, she can answer my daughter’s call.   

Spring flowers bloom around the pondside, I watch the duck lead her children across it. I pick two bluebells, leave them by the bench, leave her behind me. For the first time, I don’t hear her call.  

Grey Key  

Nocturnal No Longer 

You used to drive through the night. 

Coffee at pitstops blurring into one. 

When the voice said turn left, you turned left. 

You watched the streetlights blink with your indicator. 

Time slipped through your hands, 

which slipped from the wheel. 

The usual ringing in your ears pulsed – a warped siren. 

Liquid iron coated your throat. 

It coated your hands. 

But it was bright. The roadside - alight with colour. 

This was your domain. 

You woke. 

It hurt. 

You quit 

Rowan Harris 

Hall of Egress 

My eyes are closed tight, 

Double knotted. 

It’s colder in here than it is out there. 

The stone walls shake away the warmth, 

and fill the room with the temperature of blue. 

Four walls make up four corners, 

One wall makes up one phrase- 

HALL 

            OF 

                   EGRESS 

Egress, Egress, EGRESS! 

A lifetime of blind, wayward wondering. 

An entropy into the persistent unknown. 

An endless endeavour, spanning generations, 

But this time… 

Something’s different. 

Sight unbuckled, 

The path before me is clear. 

Biblical. Angelic. 

At the seashell’s centre lies the cornucopia’s smallest door. 

And the very moment that I trust myself and let go of fear- 

The door reveals itself to me, 

Wide and welcoming. 

‘Egress’ 

Egress means exit! 

-O.P 

A year’s dusk 

Sitting at his desk, Luther watched the rain spatter his balcony, the wind lightly ruffling the curtains. Far overhead, hidden behind dark clouds, the moon had no idea another year had passed. 

He had to repeat that in his head. Another year, passed. Lost to the winds of time. He could feel life trickling away through his fingers. Every day seemed to sweep by more quickly; that scared him. 

Still, he tried not to fret about it. Instead, he focused on what he could control. Tried to realise the good things he had done, rather than what he felt he had let himself down by doing. 

He stood and crossed the room to stand beside the window, tracing raindrops with his fingertips. Outside, the heavens were weeping down onto the earth, drowning the fields in their grief, and for the longest time he simply watched the rain fall. 

Another whole year, gone. Or, perhaps, another whole year to live. Both were equally true, and yet one was a magical spark, the other was a dull ache of loss.  

Turning away from the window, he put out the light. Work could wait. It was time for him to sleep.  

Loki Wilson 

Moving On   

this is the first day of the rest of my life  

I should do something special to celebrate  

I’ll start with a nice brew  

some toast  

piping hot  

dripping with salted butter  

because yesterday wasn't such a good day 

so I'll leave it behind to move on 

and if today isn’t a better day 

there is  

as ever  

tomorrow 

Alexa Appleford