I Didn’t Know The Fires Were Cold

  The Cobbles Outside Brasenose College You are the rainbow sheen of the ink from a black ballpoint pen  laid out on the paper. I am the light from the torch that dances  off falling drops of rain.  They look like snowflakes except not as cold. And not as beautiful. You are the majesty of the night that sits around  the shoulders of buildings. I am the crumbling  of sandstone beneath fingertips. You are the crisp white fibres of a cotton shirt lined up like soldiers waiting to go home. I am the breeze that slips in between cardigans: the breach in the barrier that cannot be identified.  Least of all by me; and it is my body. You are a degree, a title.  Enshrined in the historic register of  wasted days. I am all the books you didn't read but should have done. —————— This is the first poem I wrote in Oxford. It’s based on a series of conversations I had with a friend, about our preconceptions of Oxford and the r...

 Hello, my name is Sophie and I am an activist.  It has taken me so long to get to this point. I used to believe I was an activist failed, that I had tried so hard and fallen at every hurdle. It wasn't a name I would have claimed for myself out of shame for being an angry disabled person. The reality is I'm not angry. I'm not an angry person; anger isn't really an emotion I have access to. Instead I'm a worrier who likes to help people. It makes my activism quite unusual and very effective. I've achieved a lot throughout my life, but I've had two major wins. The first win was my first ever accidental attempt at activism. I became an activist aged 14 whilst in hospital with severe anorexia. I wasn't expected to live, my mum was told to say goodbye. And in typical Sophie style, I decided I wanted to live. I started to eat, and there was hope. The doctors became very dismissive of my struggles. Why can't you just eat more, Sophie? Drink orange juice, So...