This twisted village pulled me into poetry, this shadowed edge

of Cambridge, before the flattened fens. This suburban Minotauran maze,

where council houses seemed to breed, where childhood trauma grazed

like cattle on the commons. Not the spires of colleges that inspired us,

we didn’t notice domed churches, the stained glass seeming leached of colour

as we passed, ignorant of all learning within those dim Oak-panelled halls,

the hallowed horn-drinking rituals of Michaelmas matriculation

meant nothing yet, only othered us. We didn’t glimpse the pillared majesty

of four-hundred-year-old walls, nor the mortarboards and gowns

of graduates who milled about the Mill Pond. We never visited this town

as tourists, never paid to punt gaily down the Cam, straw-boater hats

on plum-voiced pimpernels, never heard their boastful brags of Kings

and buildings owned by royalty. How would we? No, it was just us,

creeping down dank alleyways after dark, watching classmates bruise

invisibly behind closed doors, the hidden handprints on our backs.

How mewling kitten necks were snapped for lack of cash to pay the vet,

where alcohol numbed those barely living lives in cramped unheated rooms,

as adults failed us time over time. Where the cruelty of school was no respite;

each dreamless fitful sleep, each anxious night. Our homes were bricks

and mortar, nothing more, partitioned walls too small to fit our secrets in.

Here hide and seek was not for fun, our hides were tanned by hands

we hoped would gentle, if only we could learn by rote the changing rules

of being good. Here we learnt to do as we were told, to say Thank you 

instead of No, to withhold want, to veil our need behind net curtains.

Here we mastered how to mask our real selves, or else, to risk the wrath

of those supposed to love us. As kids we were word perfect in excuses, lies

that covered just enough, like lining paper over mould. As teens we studied

how to stay out late, stay out of sight, run out of reach, never upstairs,

long arms can catch you there, grab ankles, yank you down down down,

carpet burns elbows and knees, that’ll teach you. Our parents toyed with us

like paper dolls cut from their likeness, folded heavy tabs of don’t you dare 

over our shoulders, our rigid shapes, our lift-the-flap faces swapped and swapped

again until we showed the right emotion. Us gangs of girls held together tight

like paperchains, the only thing in common was our longing to escape.

Our throats were throttled closed, unspoken hopes caught in our mouths

and collared in. Looking back, I see those girls - so full of need - 

how desperately we clung to anything that fed release. One vanished

at fifteen, one barely spoke, one overdosed just trying to be free. And me –

Only after years away did I return, lifted my eyes for the first time to find

mismatched rooftops rising high above the streets, raised my expectations

of this place I’d always felt excluded me. Only later did I dare to finally apply,

somehow allowed right through those private gates. Now, I recognise

the privilege of living near this history, the cobblestones and costly sticky buns,

the low-bridged beauty of the Cam, the fluted chimney pots and floral calm

of horticultured gardens; pomegranate trees now grow behind the library

where Wordsworth sat, now poetry’s no longer something captivated kids

get teased about. I graduated, PGCE, wore my cap and gown with pride.

Now, I teach classes full of kids like me, I gently help them see that reading

books can fill them up, can give them wings, make sure they know to play

with language, shape it, hold it inside and then release it like a bird.

How writing brings you back to life, how poetry is air itself.

Can you see how books flung themselves into my hands? How minds longed

to be touched more gently than skin? How each turn of the page felt like falling

in love, where love was words and sentences were steak, and we were ravenous.