by Georgina Norie

Unpeel the duvet. Open your eyes. Lift your head. Sunlight.
I was hoping for clouds.
C’mon. Get up. Let the light drape over your face.
Getupgetupgetup GET. UP. Run. Go for a run in the park. It always helps.
Not always. I can hide from myself sometimes, can’t run from myself though.
Fine, you don’t have to go for a run. Go for a walk instead. Drink the wind, hold the coarse bark of the oak tree in the palm of your hand, thank the tinkling stream, listen to the Blackbird singing ‘The Beatles’ in the dead of your night.
It will help.
OK. Fine. Ten more minutes and I’ll get up for real.
OK, deal!
Put down your phone. Stop scrolling. Meditate, write instead! It’ll help.
Put down. your phone.

Go to the kitchen. Talk. Eat. Smile. Be nice.
Great, now reply to your messages ‘yeah, all good, you?’
Make plans! Keep busy. Say your affirmations:
I am worthy.
Say it again:
I am worthy.
Go to the kitchen. Talk. Eat. Smile. ‘Yeah, all good, you?’
Make plans!
Cancel the plan.
Do not cancel another plan.
I am allowed to cancel the plan.
For god’s sake, just be yourself again!
Who is that?
You read that social interaction regulates the brain. Cancelling the plan is a symptom.
No. I know what I need. I need to lay with this darkness, let its shadow soak my pillow, blow my nose on the duvet.
Face it. Hold it. Draw it.
I can’t draw.
No one else is going to see it, no need to be embarrassed in your own company.

See how the ink cradles our words and lays them gently on to the page, how the paper embraces these hidden parts of us and accepts them, unconditionally as a mother.
Pull the notebook to our chest in the same way. Sleep.

Emerge from our duvet a feather,
vulnerable, alone and determined to duplicate, to grow a set of wings.
Now fly into the garden, land in a bed of deep orange marigold flowers,
bury down to the soil and take hold of the hand rising from the earth
until we have raised an entire body.

Behold us.
Not the old us. Not a new us.
An us that has grown.


Georgina Norie | @GeorginaNorie | @GeorginaNoriePoetry | @georgienorie
A poet/performer/facilitator currently studying an MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes, Georgina holds a strong belief in the power of writing and storytelling to heal the mind, body and soul. She has performed at prestigious venues and festivals across the UK and is published in several small presses including Mud Press, Dear Damsels, Nottingham University, Forward Poetry and Word Up.

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