Welcome

If you are browsing from a mobile and haven’t seen it, there’s a hamburger menu on the title banner for ease of navigation.

It might be an awkward fit,
but is it an authentic one?

“Head above parapet”, F, Anglican, aspires to wake up and smell the coffee God has made.

Themes include belonging, singleness,
attachment, communion,
underrepresented intimacies,
comings-to-terms, neurodiversity
faith, mental health, sexuality
and the nurturance
of a very patient God.

I hope you will find something
that resonates with you.

This is a free, non-monetized site and WordPress occasionally places its own ads. If ads put you off, try this: https://aspiringruth.wordpress.com/2026/09/19/how-to-view-this-site-without-ads/

Maranatha

For single and celibate Christians.

Confession (Song of Swine, which is the Song of the Two Watchmen). Hypomania.

My eyes were doves. Now they’re middle white battery farm boars

Gallowswomen (a poem of grief and anger)

“You become responsible, forever, for that which you have tamed.”
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

How to view this site without ads: A purpose-designed browser feature you might not know existed. And a story.

This is a small, personal blog on a free plan which could likely never make much in the way of revenue. Still, where it cannot glean a subscription fee from me, WordPress reserves the right to place its own in-text ads – presumably to make the money that way. It’s not nearly as many ads as your average news outlet article, and nor are they nearly as intrusive or deceptive. But as a content creator you still have to see them breaking up your text every. Single. Login.

I Wish

This is a slightly pathetic ‘letting it all out’ poem. Tea and sympathy would be appreciated if you can spare it.

Limerence (Resignation IV)

One day there was a little worm
That moved into my head:
You’d stuck out your tongue at me
And out it popped instead.

I don’t know why you did it,
And yet I’m very sure
That knowing you’d a tongue louse,
You’d have shown your tongue no more.

N.B. A tongue louse, or tongue-eating louse (Cymothoa exigua), is a parasite that latches onto the tongue of a fish, eventually causing the tongue to wither and drop off. The parasite then replaces the host’s tongue with itself, performing the tongue’s usual functions. It infects its host via the respiratory system (gills).

---

Photo by Jan van der Wolf on Pexels.com

Wishing we wished we desired God: A six-minute devotional for other people tired of Bible studies

Some kinds of Christian writing are hard to stomach right now. Maybe you’d rather fellowship with other heathens, too.

To All The Kicking Waifs

Blessed are you, baby girl,
Exposed in a field,
Kicking in your blood.
Before they chose your name
Grief sealed you first.
You were ‘too much’.
Now you are free

and sick with love.
Jane Doe,
Nipples were not meant
To leak rat poison,
Nor strong, male hands hold
Your throat.
This law was graven in your thirst
Time and again,
Long ago.
You have understood.

Kick now, baby doe, in your blood;
Kick furiously, lost and free,
As you dream
Of burying your head between pomegranates,
Sucking citrus fruit down to the rind,
Juice flowing over lips and gums;
Sliced apple taken in a kiss,
Wild figs soft against your tongue.

“Do not stir or awaken love until it is ready”
– sing it baby girl, sweet baby doe.
Don’t fade on me.
Kick and sing and grieve
If just to see if teeth come through.
Then you may go.

---

Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Pexels.com

To an ally (Resignation III)

A trad, rhyming ‘poem, poem’ about a situation that wasn’t trad or poetic at all. I’ve broken the lines up because a 3-inch smartphone screen view would break them up worse.

Liturgy of the Attachment Wound: Ruth’s answer to a writing prompt by Joseph Fasano

---

Liturgy of the Attachment Wound

There are days when I am willing to be born
and days when I am not. 
My heart is a hollow, reeling time-thief in the morning
And a reckless world-forsaking fugitive at night. 
If I could only suckle on you in the dark,
Enfolded in your touchless touch,
I could be still.
If I could only let go of my wild, crazed lust for a shot of the common grace
Of holding, settling, feeding, which every infant’s meant to know as ‘home’,
I’m told that I will be the nursing child. 
Jesus-God, this poem is for you. 
To love you is to be the nursing child.
This is what you have promised.
Please let it be true.

---

As you can see from the original prompt below I’ve not quite stuck to the structure, but it has been a wholesome experience. The text is copy-pasteable, should you wish to try it yourself.

---

(Title)
There are days when I am (my name)
and days when I am not. 
My heart is a/an (adjective) (verb)ing (noun) in the morning
and a/an (adjective) (verb)ing (noun) at night. 
If only I could (verb) in the (noun),
I would be (adjective).
If only I could let go of (noun), 
I would be the (verb)ing (noun). 
(Someone’s name), this poem is for you. 
To love you is to be the (repeat what you’ve written for line 8).
(writing prompt by Joseph Fasano)

---

Joseph Fasano is one of my favourite contemporary poets. His incisive, gently raw poetry shows us our unvarnished condition in a way that helps us bear to look at it.

The Facebook algorithms first brought him to me and now I’m following his Substack.

Here he is: https://josephfasano.substack.com?r=287amn