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Terry Griffiths Poem
I was going to add a long remix track to a playlist,
A playlist called ‘Waitin For the Bus in the Dark’,
But waitin for the bus in the dark is as tedious as it is -
Making a remix tedious alongside it wouldn’t make sense.
The remix is exciting now -
Anticipating excitement knocking on my eardrums as I wonder how the tune will change.
But next time,
If I play it too soon,
I’ll know.
I’ll just know.
Knowing keeps listening from being curious,
And makes it here we go again.
But “here we go again” are lyrics in an excellent song -
1973 by James Blunt.
Maybe I could add that with the remix to the playlist
And never know which will play first.
Maybe I could add so many songs
That twill be one unmemorable remix
That won’t all play in the time I’m waiting for the bus,
One unmemorable remix that Spotify can shuffle out of order.
The bus I’m waiting for now is too long away
To make it to my trans support group before it ends,
So I’ll make my way home
And bump into an old friend
Who must have started to find me tedious
Or forgotten about me,
Like a song on shuffle that barely plays,
Forgotten how good it is.
Copyright © Terry Griffiths | Year Posted 2026
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Terry Griffiths Poem
Being short used to be my biggest insecurity
Because it was not very gender affirming –
Other boys towered above me like basketball nets.
If I would’ve looked up into their eye,
Pity would’ve punched holes in their sockets.
Before the tallest among them knew I was trans,
He didn’t see me as separate from him & his friends.
But when he found out,
He said "we’ve got *expletive* Terry on our team" in a PE football lesson.
I let him look down on me and laugh
When he noticed I was right behind him.
I don’t think that, when I was in sixth form,
Pupils would’ve poured water over my bag and chucked orange peel in the stall I was in,
Told their friends they could hear me pooing,
Making me scared to come out
If they didn’t look down on me.
*
But volunteering in a nursery at uni,
The kids were fighting
To hold my hands and sit on my lap.
I think my shortness was a contributor –
I wasn’t far off their height,
Wasn’t high above their level,
So they weren’t intimidated by me,
Could easily approach me.
Now people are only looking down at me
And I am looking up at them
In a literal sense.
I love being a little man.
I love getting to be at the front in photographs,
Not needing to duck under low doorways,
Having tall people’s pretty belts in my pretty eyes.
Although it’d be to try out being tall,
I’m happy being short.
Copyright © Terry Griffiths | Year Posted 2025
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Terry Griffiths Poem
My flower wanted to be his own plant,
But he would not be had he not been planted.
My flower would get frustrated by the realisation that he was in the process of blossoming —
He would need someone to hold the hose over him when the clouds had prioritised another,
Prioritised them so much that they
Seemed like salty sea.
That is, when he is finally accompanied by the others,
Outside on the big wide soil.
For the time being, he resides in his pot,
Like a baby in their cot,
Using it as comfort,
Yet crying out to leave.
Copyright © Terry Griffiths | Year Posted 2026
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Terry Griffiths Poem
“Everyone’s different,” says someone born in May
To the another whose birthday’s in June.
“But we all get a “hip hip hooray!”!”
“Every cake’s different,” say tastebuds to a spoon;
A stable table to some disposable plates
As they hear for the first time the table’s same tune.
“Every bite’s different,” say the plates in turn on the table.
“Every different bite’s bitten to a new beat on the first record
That plays when cake song’s sung and cake placement is stable.
The foreground to “the food of love” is to tape record.
The format of birthdays is repeated, results still differing for
Each year’s wish, released like a parachute pack by a ripcord.
Copyright © Terry Griffiths | Year Posted 2026
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Terry Griffiths Poem
If you don’t have a romantic partner,
You have all kinds of versions of you
That you can choose for yourself.
You don’t need a partner to offer a mint imperial
And place it in a hand.
You don’t need a partner to take a mint imperial,
Place it in your mouth
And decide how long you want to suck it
Before you bite.
You don’t need a partner to send a good morning message.
You don’t need a partner to have a good night.
You don’t need a partner to eat
- Ben & Jerry’s
- Fondant filled chocolate
- Pukka pie
- Crinkly crisps.
In fact, you get more without one.
You don’t need a partner to have
- A passion flower
- An hour long shower
- A good trip with a loved one up the Eiffel Tower
- To pick up in rush hour.
So don’t rush into a relationship.
You don’t need a partner to be part of something,
Like a group of volunteers, a community, a movement.
Who needs a partner when you have an entire team?
And without a partner,
Which team you join is completely your choice.
You don’t need a partner to say
- “Please show me the way”
- “Salt n pepper please”
- “You’re so cute together”
- “Happy Valentine’s Day”.
And you don’t have to limit your Valentine’s wishes
To crushes.
In fact, saying it to crushes is the riskiest.
You don’t have to limit your Valentine’s wishes
To people in romantic relationships.
Valentine’s can be a kind gesture to a friend
Or simply an exit from a bus.
Cheers.
Copyright © Terry Griffiths | Year Posted 2026
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Terry Griffiths Poem
On this morning I’ve been in an anxious state,
I’ve taken my meds as normal -
Which I would have done no matter what state I woke up in.
Mental health medication medicates mental health,
But that doesn’t mean that mindset doesn’t matter,
And not for the sake of the mentality of our outsiders.
We’re not a herd,
But we’ll be heard together -
Not just when we ask for our prescriptions.
Away, we take our medication
After weeks in advance of preparation,
Explaining we need it prepared in advance to take away.
We ride through the times when the listeners we seek
Are too bogged down to hear about what’s bogging our brains
That medication cannot take away.
Copyright © Terry Griffiths | Year Posted 2026
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Terry Griffiths Poem
Imagine a bus that runs Eight Days a Week
with seats made of slimy leek
sliming further for every sitter
and sputtering out oil with every creak.
Imagine not getting to get the bus
'less you come on frying leeks, making a fuss
’bout passengers not letting you get oil from under their seats,
provoking your pan to concuss!
Imagine all the people concussed by pans
on the Eight Days a Week bus – The Beatles fans.
Hold me, love me Eight Days a Week
while we make bus seat slimy leek flans.
Fancy riding on a sturdy open topped crust
with leek-based lube setting our lust?
Why, to society’s travel regulations
should we have to adjust?
Bouncing on a slime seat with nude bum cheeks is fun.
Let’s also slime our face cheeks to shield from the sun
on my mind Eight Days a Week, My Leek.
Massage me with oil – this bus has a ton!
Copyright © Terry Griffiths | Year Posted 2026
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Terry Griffiths Poem
The row of hydro flasks standing proud on seminar desks,
The red splat outside the door of our flat made
Coz they wouldn't let me put my pressure cooker into venting mode in the kitchen.
Venting mode is what my flatmates are switched to coz of my mess one day,
But the next they are chuckling
'Bout how I mopped without getting the crud off the floor.
It is knocking on each others' doors with our fists when sober,
Flopping in when drunk.
It is thinking, wow, since my flatmate won't date me,
Her boyf must be a real hunk.
University is the range of washing up liquid colours
And the cluster of tomatoey scran in the freezer,
But also Groundhog Day with linguistics lecturers asking us
What we call a bread roll and how we say ‘bath’.
When will I wash it all off?
Copyright © Terry Griffiths | Year Posted 2026
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Terry Griffiths Poem
Let’s listen to songs in the language of play
From the Harts of our inner children
As Miranda’s dear reader chums.
The joy is in colouring in a crocodile,
Not whether you make a crocodile
Look like an accurate crocodile.
When you’re blue, colour a crocodile
Blue, too.
Twit twoo if you want to.
Who says you have to colour in a crocodile?
What about stamping little Harts onto the picture
Or picking stamp letters of your favourite words,
Spelling them haueva u onet oo.
Crocodile doesn’t seem like a word anymore -
I’ve been writing it so much.
Copyright © Terry Griffiths | Year Posted 2026
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Terry Griffiths Poem
How could I have planned to use it again when I remember finding it purely terrifying?
No practice on the pavement, immediate terror on the road.
How did I think I was going to get to my hospital placement on one of those scooters without needing the hospital myself?
It felt like I couldn’t stop if I needed to,
But I somehow got home after the simulation speech assessment
Where I was told I spoke too loudly,
Recommended to install a delayed auditory feedback app.
Copyright © Terry Griffiths | Year Posted 2026
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