I Never Walked Alone

When people saw me at Midlands Fringe, they saw fifty minutes on a stage.

What they didn't see were the years it took to get there.

I arrived feeling everything all at once. Excited. Nervous. Grateful. Terrified. Emotional. I don't think there was a single feeling I hadn't packed into my bag that day.

By my side, as she has been so many times before, was Jen.

She has walked beside me through workshops, ideas scribbled in notebooks, performances, self-doubt, laughter, tears and celebrations. She never asked me to be anything other than myself. Sometimes that's the greatest gift someone can give you.

When I stepped onto that stage, I wasn't just performing poems. I was telling my story.

I began with my earliest memory.

I spoke about losing my voice. About losing confidence. About what happens when someone slowly convinces you that your words don't matter.

Then I spoke about finding them again.

I shared how that journey eventually led me to create Llangollen Spoken Word. I could never have imagined that one small idea would grow into the community it has become. Every month I meet people brave enough to stand up and share a little piece of themselves. Some arrive convinced they can't write. Others whisper their first poem through shaking hands.

Then something shifts.

That's the magic.

It isn't really about poetry.

It's about people realising they have a voice worth hearing.

Somewhere during the performance, I spoke about losing my mum.

I read the poem I wrote not long after she died. If I'm honest, I didn't really read it. I choked my way through it. Even now, grief has a way of catching you by surprise. Some words don't become easier simply because time has passed.

And that's okay.

That poem deserved every crack in my voice.

Because that's what this whole journey has taught me.

A voice doesn't have to be perfect to be powerful.

When I finished, I realised this performance wasn't really a celebration of finding my own voice.

It was a celebration of what happens when we help each other find ours.

Every workshop. Every open mic. Every conversation after everyone else has gone home. Every person who has trusted me with their story.

This community has given me so much more than I could ever give back.

So thank you to everyone who has come to Llangollen Spoken Word. Thank you to everyone who has shared a poem, listened to someone else's, or simply sat in the room making it feel safe enough for another person to speak.

Thank you to Midlands Fringe for giving me a stage.

And thank you, Jen.

You were there long before the applause and long after it faded.

You've celebrated every milestone with me, carried me through the wobbles, and reminded me, time and again, that none of us have to do this alone.

Looking back now, I don't think the performance was the achievement.

The achievement was becoming the person who could stand there and tell the truth.

And perhaps the greatest privilege of all isn't that I found my voice.

It's that I now get to witness other people finding theirs.