Forget Me Not

You shall marry my resemblance
a tongue not quite as sharp,
a skin not quite as thick,
an almost.

After all, it was never my body that troubled you,
but the nature that inhabits it.

You see, my blood was forged in iron;
an ancestry of working hands,
unknown to idleness
blessing every thing I touch.

They braid into my hair wisdom,
sharpen my teeth in the dark;
and when grief comes for me,
they lead me gently 

to cry upon dry land.

This bloodline is an army
few have seen alike.

With every step I take,
theirs is the thunder beneath it;
a thousand old feet thumping
an earthquake for the unprepared.

They bow only before greatness.

And you thought they would kneel to you?

What a torment it must have been
to try to cage,
to tame,
to silence

my voice, a thousand screams.

I have never been
a yielding woman.
What could you possibly have done with me?

So go.

Run far
and fear me.
Hide where you can,
lie as you do.

Find yourself a shell.

Wake beside her
each morning.
Call her yours.
Unleash upon her
the same hunger
that once devoured me.

Take from her
as you took from me:
the fruit of her passion,
the light from her eyes,
again,
and again,
and again.

You starving soul.

I pray she is the last.

Eat.

Feast.

Take until there is nothing left
but the echo of your wanting.

That day,
you will choke.

But you will

forget me not.

For I will live
in the silence after your lies,
in every woman you try 

and fail to make smaller.

You will find me

wherever your footsteps carry you
For there is no distance far enough

to outrun a woman you could not break.

Till Death Do Us Part

A selection of poems written by local artists, which I embroidered onto layers of canvas to form a tapestry of collective memory centered around the theme of eternal love. It was exhibited exclusively at The Royal Pavilion & Adelaide Salon Art Gala in June 2026 and then purposefully destroyed.

Meet me in the shadow

between the silver laps

You run around my mind,

freely & tirelessly

like you are yet to find

someone to return home to,

and the abyss that follows

Your sudden but calculated breath

that holds my heart suspended:

a flicker on the surface of

something greater than I

would ever admit to be surpassed by.

Hold me in the darkness,

where our fingertips speak their own language

as they star in a noir all too familiar.

Let us silently bare witness to

the magnitude of this Love.

Meet me where the light is dim

so I can see You glimmer my reflection

in this mirror that I know so well.

Meet me in our corner, where Your smile

is warm against my own,

And tell me that right here

we get to live

forever.

Dani Z.

---

Asked death if love is worth my end

Impossible to choose you

Impossible to pretend

Scales tipped against my lovers comfort

Bent and twisted in defeat

Poisoned chalice tastes bitter on blood red lips

Staining my heart, stealing my retreat.

We lie hopeless in squandered breath

Wishing wishes cast spells on vacant forms

Taking dreams from nightmare state

True to you as bride clad in black

Hollow steps marching to deadly fate

Veil draped ready to mourn

In front of rusty hate

Folklore holds a place for slaves

Who dance it all

When gods envy

Roses who are sure to wilt into shallow graves

Stephen G.

---

I hope your life is filled with

Light from March: I hope your

pockets brim with pebbles

Round, your kiss is caught

Beneath the sun and arch; I

Hope your jacket clings with

Buttons found; I hope your

Mouth is crammed with maple

Yells, that dance from lips onto

The sacred ground, so where

Was dusk now grows the

sapphire bells, and from your

Moth let chirp that April

Sound; for though the grey was

War and peace, and though the

Day was fiction quick and built

Of twigs, and though we’ve no

release from fleece, and

though we’ve yet to ripe our

Figs, it’s in the misty chill and

Brightness spill that brings us

Hope and joy when we are still.

Timothy

---

And when the now has shed its present tense,

And when the ‘has’ adorns its latent skin,

And when what-is becomes a woeful whence—

Just when Marcel (with mouth) has met his mandoline—

It’s then the ending ended ending: told

Had taken over tell; the book, its crease,

Had fallen in its final resting fold;

That’s when dear peace had found its restful cease.

But, once the had had had and the did did,

The void invited silence in for tea

And biscuits—it’s then the present shyly grinned,

For where there is a screaming silence. ‘Fin’

Will never be. And so the restful lack

Is in the twilight-crack of is and

Timothy

---

It ended after

The happened

Had

Happened;

It stopped after

The page flattened,

White

Blackened;

It didn’t end

When imagined,

But between

gap of now and

Written;

It never ends

In the thinnest,

Or when things are

Timothy

---

Today I found a letter from you

Had you forgotten you had written it so many years go

How could you write such tender words when we were so far apart

Yet when we are together no such endearments are allowed

To pass your lips.

What is it you fear from me? I am just me

The person you chose as your partner

Those many years ago when right from the start

You were afraid that I had come to steal your life

Not share it.

The struggle for power pulls us this way and that

Up and down as passion plays its part

Neither of us will capitulate or admit it is just a game

I want to hold you and have you tell me how much you love

My courageous spirit

But now you scorn me, accuse me of dominating you

Of using you for ends I will not reveal

Ambition maybe, avarice and greed

All of these words are flying from your lips that on some nights

Whisper words of love

Life had ways of playing tricks

Words that are written from a distance

Don’t mean the same as those spoken face to face

There is no threat at the end of a pen

A pen simply writes.

You are no longer with me so the words are unspoken

All I can feel is regret that we could not say to each other

Words that could have united us, made us one

Made us strong enough to meet the worlds face to face

Now all I can do is write.

J. Goldby

---

I asked him to marry me

He said “I can’t you see

I have promised to another

That she mine will be

I gathered up my shattered life

And took myself away

Despite the fact that he had begged

“Oh please, why don’t you stay?”

“This may not work, I’m not quite sure

If she’s the one for me

But she’s told her dad that I’m to blame

For things we can’t yet see

Many years had passed us by

I met him once again

And still my foolish heart beat fast

Forgetting all the pain

He picked me up we went for lunch

And talked of things mundane

Each wondering where this would lead

Each playing our own small game

“She left me quite some time ago”

He finally confessed

“She said I cheated her too much

She’s bitter and depressed.”

“Forgive me if I’m cynical

But I think you will agree

If we had been a couple

You’d have done the same to me. “

He protested loud his innocence

“It’s not like that at all

All that she was interested in

Was the kids and the bingo hall.”

He took me to the Summer House

And after passion throes

I thought of what just might have been

If it has been me he chose

He told me he had often thought

Of me with tenderness

And wished he’s made a different choice

But we could only guess

I moved away to distant shores

With the one who had my life

I put the other from my heart

And became a faithful wife

Once again the time had fled

Our paths have crossed once more

I stand behind the others

Just inside the door

This time he will not fool me

My heart is cast in stone

The others left and I am left

Beside his grave alone.


J. Goldby

---

You are a flower always growing

People often take flowers

Out of the ground and

Put them in water

Only to wither.

I think you just kept growing

Until the table toppled

The glass smashed

You followed the water trail

To the garden and let yourself have root

Your seeds carried with the wind

You kept growing

Everywhere your home the world your beauty endless…

Violet

---

Maybe it’s nice to think that love isn’t forever.

It’s okay for it to slip away like helium from a balloon.

Merging into an atmosphere much larger than itself.

Maybe it’s good to think that love is all around us.

Freshly escaped and searching for its new home.

Hermit crabs on the beach trying out different shapes of shell.

Maybe it’s strong to remember love is not a one-size fits all.

It could be made with good intention like your lumpy hand-knit cardigan.

Tucked away in your dressed drawer- best for reminiscing.

Maybe it’s foolish to hope that love understands time.

And taps on-beat with a pocket watch or at least my heart.

And will find me again when the universe wills.

Elly

---

I called out to my beloveds in the midst of grief

and the song of death lured me in for a kiss

My forehead glistened with anticipation

Here lies the rot of old wounds

It's stench

Bubbling with rage

My liver laments

My lover recedes/wanes

Everything here is saturated

I wriggle beneath my skin

I try to be less kind

Fae

---

I want to take the crumbs

Left after the world has finished eating us

And fit them all together

In a never solved before puzzle.

Johan M.

The Fool

At the altar, I could feel my body turning against me.

My chest caved inward as though my heart had finally grown too tired to keep forgiving.

I could not breathe properly; breath became an afterthought, something less urgent than surviving the moment.

Everyone says there are words for grief, but they lie. There are no words when the life you rehearsed collapses in real time, no comfort to be had. Even sleep refused to carry me far enough away from it.

I would have been the perfect bride. You made certain of that.

Soft-spoken. Elegant. Never wanting.

Galatea. A woman sculpted carefully by the hands that loved her only as an ideal.

But what remained of me beneath this ivory promise?

After years of swallowing my own voice to keep the peace, could I still speak without trembling?

After withering in front of your judgement, could I still trust myself enough to want something different?

The ring burned against my skin as though it already knew the answer.

A tiny silver circle.

A life sentence disguised as devotion.

And when I finally pulled it from my finger, the world seemed to stop breathing with me.

It hurt.

God, it hurt.

Not because I did not love you.

But because I did. Because part of me still wanted to stay. Still willing to become smaller if it meant being held. Still making myself shiny enough to have a place at your table.

My hands shook as I threw it.

A diamond flashed briefly through cathedral light.

The sound it made against the stone floor was so small for something that shattered an entire future.

Now that my hands no longer know the weight of silver, they belong to me again. They rise toward the sky, trembling and weightless, like wings learning themselves for the first time.

I stood there stripped bare of everything I once had.

No plan.

No direction.

No certainty about who I would become after this.

Only the unbearable dread of the unknown.

And yet, behind the grief and the fear of undoing a timeline, there was something almost holy blooming inside me.

Lightness.

As though I had spent years drowning without realising the water was shallow enough to stand in.

Love of my every lifetime, our story ends today.

And mine, at last, begins.