Musings

I do not understand
why a child should go to sleep
with an empty stomach,
while supermarket shelves glow
like cathedrals of abundance.

I do not understand
why tiny hands,
made for crayons, kites and mud pies,
must carry bricks,
rifles,
or grief.

I do not understand
why skin,
that miraculous wrapping
for hearts that beat exactly the same,
can still be used
as a reason to hate.

I do not understand
why borders matter more
than breathing,
or why some lives are measured
in headlines
and others
in silence.

I do not understand
why kindness is treated
like a radical act,
or why compassion
must always fight so hard
to be heard.

Perhaps I never will.

But I know this.

A hungry child is all our child.
A wounded stranger is still our kin.
And every time hatred speaks,
someone, somewhere,
must answer with love,
louder.

Because if there is one thing
I truly do not understand,

it is how we can look at one another,
on this small blue planet
spinning through an endless dark,

and forget
that we are family.

JH

There is a strange idea

that to rise,
someone else must fall.

That kindness is weakness.
That compassion costs too much.
That difference is something
to fear.

But look closer.

The world has never been changed
by those who built higher walls.

It changes
every time someone says,
"Come in."

Do more.

Not for applause,
not for likes,
not because your name will be remembered.

Do more because somewhere
a tired soul is carrying
far more than you can see.

Be kinder.

Everyone is fighting battles
behind careful smiles
and ordinary conversations.

Respect everyone.

The cleaner.
The stranger.
The refugee.
The neighbour.
The person who disagrees with you.
The person who looks nothing like you.

Human dignity
should never be selective.

We are all temporary travellers,
brief sparks beneath the same sky.

So leave gentleness in your wake.

Hold doors.
Share laughter.
Speak softly.
Stand firmly against cruelty.

And when history asks
what we did with our little piece of time,

let the answer be:

We made it kinder.

JH

Rising against being silenced - Wattpad

Catch me on whattpad :) 

The archives remember kings
because kings built the archives

our names survived in fragments
stitched into the hems of uniforms
pressed into recipe books
buried inside letters no historian thought to unfold carefully

they called us muses
wives
witches
madwomen
assistants

anything but architects

for centuries they edited us down
cut us from photographs
quoted our work without saying our names
turned our bodies into evidence
our anger into diagnosis
our exhaustion into character flaws

they built entire institutions
out of the belief
that we would stay grateful for the corners

but something is changing now

you can feel it in the classrooms
in the courtrooms
in group chats that turn into movements before dawn
in daughters who no longer apologise before speaking
in women comparing notes
and suddenly realising the pain was never personal

we are recovering each other
like lost cities beneath water

there is fury in it
but also tenderness

the kind born when someone says
I thought I was alone in this

and another voice answers
you were never alone
they just worked very hard to keep us separate

now the old language is cracking

the words that kept us small
hysterical
difficult
too emotional
too ambitious
too loud

they no longer fit properly

we are outgrowing them

there are women alive right now
learning to take up space without apology
without shrinking their brilliance
without softening their edges into something more acceptable

women rebuilding themselves from the historical record outward

There will come a morning

not loud, not crowned in gold,

but breathing, like the sea at dawn,

where the soft ones finally rise.

Not with swords,

not with thunder in their throats,

but with hands that have learned

the language of holding on.

Empaths, they called them,

as if feeling were a flaw,

as if the world were not already

cracked from too much stone.

But these are the people

who hear the tremble behind silence,

who notice the weight in a smile,

who stitch the unseen wounds.

They have been mocked

for their tenderness,

told to harden,

to sharpen,

to become less.

And still, they chose more.

More listening.

More patience.

More quiet rebellions of care.

Imagine a world

where power is measured

by how gently you carry another,

not how loudly you break them.

Where kindness is not weakness

but law,

and respect is not earned

through fear

but freely given, like light.

In that world,

no voice is crushed beneath another,

no difference sharpened into a weapon,

no heart taught to close for survival.

Hate will not vanish in fire,

it will simply find no home,

no echo,

no soil to grow in.

Because the empaths will stand,

not above,

but among,

and say, quietly, firmly,

enough.

And the world,

tired of its own cruelty,

will lean toward them

like flowers toward the sun.

JH

I used to know the map of my own mind.
Every street had a name.
Every door opened.

Now the rooms move.

I walk into the morning
and it forgets me.

Faces arrive like visitors
who expect to be known.
They bring smiles,
warm voices,
and stories that sound like mine.

I search for the key
that used to fit their names.

Sometimes a memory glows
for a moment.
A small candle in fog.
A child's laugh.
The smell of rain.
A hand I once held forever.

Then the wind comes.

People say my name
as if calling someone home
across a wide field.

I want to answer.

But the path is fading.
The signs are gone.
The map is dissolving in my hands.

Inside me
a quiet person still listens,
still feels the warmth of love
even when the words fall away.

If you look into my eyes
and stay a little longer
you might see them.

The one I used to be
standing gently in the mist,
trying to remember
how to return.

JH

The key turns

and the old room sighs behind me.

Dust dances in the light

like it knows a secret.

I carry one suitcase,

half socks, half courage.

The road smells of rain

and something bright

that might be tomorrow.

A laugh slips out of me

before I even mean it to.

Turns out

starting again

is not a fall.

It is a step

onto a trampoline sky

where every bounce says

go on then

try again

but this time

have fun. 🌱✨

Peace is not a whisper,

it is a door left open.

It is the light that stays on

when the street goes dark,

the quiet cup of tea

set down between two shaking hands.

Peace is not weak.

It does not bow its head.

It stands in the centre of the storm

and says, enough.

It is the courage

to lower your voice

when you could raise it,

to unclench your fist

and find a pulse instead.

Peace grows in small places.

In school halls.

On crowded buses.

At kitchen tables where words once burned

and now begin to soften.

It is the brave art

of listening past your own echo.

The steady work

of seeing a stranger

and choosing not fear,

but wonder.

Peace builds bridges

from the thinnest thread of hope.

It stitches torn flags

into blankets.

It turns battlefields

into gardens where children run.

Do not mistake its silence

for absence.

Peace is a deep river,

moving under the noise of the world,

patient, certain, strong.

And when enough of us

step into that river,

the current shifts.

The shouting thins.

The ground remembers

how to bloom.

Peace is power,

not loud,

not cruel,

but enduring.

It is the future

walking towards us

with open hands.

JH

Lantern Heart

Some days
the world feels like a siren
that never quite switches off.

Headlines flicker
like distant fires
and I stand in my kitchen
holding a cup of tea
wondering

how can we do this
to each other

How can hands built for holding
learn to strike
How can mouths shaped for lullabies
learn to spit stones

Children sleep under broken skies
while men in suits argue over maps
as if lines were worth more than lives

And my chest
small and human
tries to contain it all

I was not built
to carry continents of grief
yet I feel them
pressing against my ribs

Still

there is a woman
feeding birds in the morning rain
there is a stranger
who kneels to tie a child’s loose lace
there is a nurse
who smooths a blanket
as if it were sacred cloth

The news does not linger there
but I do

Because I have seen
how kindness moves
not as thunder
but as a ripple
touching one shore
then another

Respect is quiet
Equality is patient
They grow like roots
in the dark
before anyone notices the tree

I cannot command the powerful
I cannot silence the cruel

But I can refuse
to become hard

I can speak gently
when sharpness would be easier
I can listen
when turning away would be simpler
I can write
so that someone somewhere
feels less alone

Perhaps the world is not saved
by one great blaze of goodness

Perhaps it is saved
by lantern hearts
that choose
again and again
not to go out

And so
when the siren rises

I place my palm against my chest
and whisper

The soul learns early
how to fray

Time does not shout
it brushes past
soft as a sleeve in a crowded room
and still it leaves threads behind

Once
the soul was a clean page
bright with belief
stitched tight with first mornings
and reckless hope

Then came the years
quiet thieves
lifting colour
loosening seams
teaching the heart the slow grammar of loss

Time tugs
not cruelly
just often

It pulls at laughter until it thins
at dreams until they feather
at love until it aches with memory
instead of promise

The soul grows tattered
but not empty

Look closer
every tear is a doorway
every loose thread remembers warmth
every worn edge has held on
longer than it thought it could

Time thinks it wins
because it leaves marks

But the soul
oh the soul
keeps breathing through the rips
keeps light caught in its tatters
like dawn through torn curtains

And if it is ragged now
it is because it stayed
because it felt
because it dared to keep going
while the hours kept passing

A tattered soul is not broken
it is proof

Proof that you lived
and loved
and let time touch you
without ever giving it the final word