Jen Considine’s poems move with the raw force of confession, rupture, and surrender. Yet beneath the jagged edges of pain and longing lies something deeper—a tuning toward coherence. Her words stretch across lifetimes and lineages, echoing with mythic archetypes and personal reckoning.

I Confess

I confess, it was me
I doused my life with lies
Drowned the demons of heartache
Betrayed my one love, this life
Buried my head in the sands of time
Longing for an end to this dread demise

Through the gates of hell, I walked alone and unarmed
I surrendered the crutch of the innocent wronged
I bled the blood I spilled
Drank the poison I gave
Faced the dreams I killed
And the freedom I caged
I heard every word I spoke out of turn
Met the gaze of every soul that I hurt
Tore my own heart to pieces, once and again for each I broke

I died a thousand deaths
Shed a thousand skins
Knelt naked in the shadows cast by my own sins
Stripped of dignity and of pride
Screeching like a banshee in the ice cold night
Flayed and unravelled, howling in fright

I confess, it was me
I burned myself at the stake
All the world was but a dream
From which I’ve been wrenched awake

The Sacrifice of Love

In this dialogue between the buried and the living
Lies exquisite, unyielding madness
Hot and holy
Bound for freedom

See how she convulses in the dead of night
Performs the final act, the funeral rite
The theatre is empty
The cosmos of her soul is empty
Devoured by the half-told story of the ancestors
Alive in a child
Whose heart never knew the origin
The sacrifice of love

You are the language I cannot unlearn
The melody I cannot unplay
And I will surrender, whichever way you ask me to

Beloved, divine
Take my life as your canvas
Compose symphonies upon my heartstrings
Pour your energy into this vessel of flesh
And whisper sweet commandments
That I might live a thousand lives
Of monsters and men and all that lie between
Weaving new mythologies from the many-rooted tree

Eve, infinite matryoshka
Resides in the womb of woman
Etched into the bone of daughter
Since the birth of time itself

Alone

You are alone
Marvellously, inexplicably alone
Fingers outstretched, brushing the fresh-cut lawn
Inhaling its tortured battle cry like a milk and honey candle

Sit beneath the sycamore tree
And bear out your soul
Tune your existence to the truest order of nature
Don’t be afraid
To the ever-chattering masses, you will always sound off-key
Upside down – topsy turvy
Backward

Sing anyway
Sing in harmony with the birds and the rivers
Allow the ocean to flow through your pores
Sweat and blood and tears
Dance to the rhythm of the nocturnal soundscape
Chattering insects; intermittent breeze

For you are the wildfire sweeping this nation
Burning entire civilisations to ash
The volcanic noose beneath deep and darkened waters
Birthing new geographies; continents divorcing continents

Bloodlines divorcing bloodlines
Families ripped to tatters
By forces stronger than fate

These pale and veiny fingers
Can make melodies sing from taught wire strings
But they cannot fix you
Darling, I have fixed hearts in my time
But not one so determined to stay broken
Walking the tightrope
Across a wide and gaping chasm
One wrong step and I am sucked right in
To a void so desperate it might never let me free

Instead I weave poetry
Words are their own kind of magic
A spell, whispered from my restless fingers to your restless mind

I will not choose sides
How could I choose without betraying the truth of memory
Burying the wayward roads I’ve wandered
Swallowing my sins

I strip myself bare
The drunken nights
The ill-chosen lovers
The fury, oh the fury
Stemming from a wound so deep it might never have closed
Except it did

Except love is a suture like nothing I’ve ever known
Except I love this world and this life
For all its terrifying foibles
Its agonising loneliness
I declare a truce on all creation
And surrender my existence

No longer a child seeking a father
No longer a girl seeking a purpose
But a woman seeking nothing
I lay down my life to the divine

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