Author Archives: Stella McHugh

It’s been a longtime Since – Saw your sudden faceIn glimpse –Shocked head turnYour visageGrey – tinged withthose foreverBlue eyes. The lightSurroundingcrystal whiteclear –Like you’d polishedEvery surface withCrystal polished clothWhite – Scrubbed, scuffMarks –Clean. All these yearsWe’veBeenSeparate pieces. Dedicated your timeTo looking atThe mark.Assessed itsNeed.Thought –How to rub its surface clean. Crossed your mind:that youContinue reading “Two Three”

Once upon a late SundayAs afternoon turns to evening,Spring shows green beforeSummer. I saw youSat In an oldArmchair Turning an appleOver and overIn your hand – Left – not right.Twist its sheen skinRed flecked with greenComplexion that fillsThe palm of yourHand – Neglected to turn theStalkUntil it snapsShe loves meLoves me not. The mind wandersWondersContinue reading “Apple”

In my morning meditation – he and I are on a sofa – leather –In a room – wallpaper flowered dark and country patterned –Like you see in all those homes. I am wearing a skirt, high heels – black .I stand up – he says I just love you, you’re special, I don’t wantContinue reading “I found you.”

I could spend daysSitting in our old garageshed, studiowatching you shornEdges off wood, weld whiteSparks from melting metalTwist clamp into exact position. Us –Enclosed behind an uncleaned window- glass –murky from winter raindried by April sun – UsInside warmed brickencased in the memoriesOf our times spent togetherYears lived outTears wept for misunderstandings.Or arguments still notUnderstoodRegretsOverContinue reading “I Could Spend”

Wolf My mother was a wild wolfBrought me upIn the woods of winter –Showed me how to forage for foodSmall voles, white duck eggs warm with yellow yolk. Pawed at hard red berries, soft fruits fallen from trees.She’d sniff the air above the windfall with her snout –Gently lift between her sharpened teethand devour: twoContinue reading “Wolf”

Gifts I may have given youthingsIn our time of knowing. When our paths crossedSuddenly – unexpectedly.Serendipitous. If I have. You will know.My gifts are unusualUnlike others –Worthless –Against the normal world. My gifts, they came from aA troubled manWhom I sat byAll my life. Watched him catchGlimpses of strangeSaints – Angels and glimpses of GodWhileContinue reading “Things I Have Given You”

I am woman Once girl At  times child  Always – perhaps. I am a mother –withoutThat has traversed plainsenabled me to scream – From a top of the mountain. I am artist. Hear me. I am woman without definition of children and family. I am here. I am artist. I am woman – still. https://youtu.be/UkKo-jXl2CQContinue reading “I am …”

2021 I’ve never drawn myself in words. Of all the images I have hadThese are the ones I recall. The artist on Shaftesbury Avenue who drew meat 19 on soft paper with charcoal.I looked at it for ages wondering ifThat was me? Another –outside Notre Dame, hair long, clippedand held back at the fringe –Continue reading “Self Portrait”

Falter – to lose strength or momentum. Speak hesitantly Move unsteadily or hesitantly Verb – Action (Ref- Dictionary definition Google online) There’s a lot of talk about strength and how strong someone is. They are strong because they do this or that, perhaps warranted perhaps not. Where am I going you ask? It is aContinue reading “Falter vs Strong”

I only needed your helpFor a few daysBefore I disappearedFrom view. Saw in youThe shadowsThat spooked youIn daytime, sun bright andWhenNoOneIs really there. Stood in frontOf them –Blocking themFrom your view. Said – Don’t listen to the shadows.They disappear with the lightAnd when another is near. You –dropped my hand in darkness.Let me find myContinue reading “Days”

Narratives for survivors and for understanding survivors.  Empowering narratives – the role they play and how important they are for survivors. I want to talk today about empowerment and disempowerment and the role it plays for survivors of extreme and traumatic events in childhood. Empowerment is a positive state of mind. Disempowerment is the opposite.Continue reading “Empowerment vs Disempowerment”

Process your pain. Writing releases memories from the body. Written after breath work, meditation and yoga. In the Town Where I Lived. In the town where I lived, there was a shop in the precinct. Stood opposite the shoe shop where the hardest girl in town threatened me for casting a look at some girlContinue reading “Therapy Writing”

What’s Happened to Sex ? What’s happened to women and girls? A great light of shame shone on Pornhub recently where it was found that 14m of their videos contained child abuse, rape and trafficking. I’m not moralistic about pornography – sex is sex. But, I have been concerned, for a long time, at theContinue reading “The Sexualisation of Women and Girls”

July If we were together –I’d take this busAnd come and see you – nowAnd sit on your sofaWith sweaty thighsAnd drink wine,While London blowsIt’s late sticky breezeDrifting in wavesThrough the open window. Covered in city grime from a sunLike the SaharaThe heat from your kissesOnly serves to addTo the desire. I imagine leavingGlitter onContinue reading “July”

We are all many things in our lives. I meander through all of them here, like a scrapbook of memories, thoughts, times – things I remember. Parts of me that I was that made the whole me today. Keep healing. The future is bright – just for you.

Photo – Stella Mchugh copyright 2016 Memory

Covid has brought great change to our lives. For me, it has brought the final ending with my family. A painful realisation that I will never get to say goodbye to them. Complex trauma, family, abuse – it is a life long process. Here is my goodbye letter to my sister. June 2021 To myContinue reading “A Letter to My Sister”

Read my essay on the relationship with endo, the uterus, the female and sexual trauma. The Uterus: A Relationship Explored. Part 1

Good enough. Is what you give meand I give yougoodenough? I want to leave you –looking outward through glass. Your gaze turnedto girlsfull of chatter,observefemale handtuck hairbehind ear,crossslender footover other,movement that tiltspelvis in rhythmicconversation. Lostin male observationin the midst offemale banterbehind glass. Then –you’ll leave our crafted hearton the station floor, your hushed scuffed scatteredContinue reading “Good Enough?”

Healing. The thing about healing child abuse is that is confronting. When I first started healing, this confronting nature was rejected by society – at that time, there was an endless focus on family, normal and happiness. Confronting child abuse was what other people did. Today, we see an outpouring of emotion about sexual assault,Continue reading “Thoughts…”

This is what violence feels like https://stellamchughwrites.com/portfolio/

12 year old girl Maid of Orleans OMD 1981 Theres’s man touching my clitoris – I know it’s called a clitoris because I looked at in the mirror. My sister told me I should look at my vagina in the mirror. I did as she said. I sat legs astride pulled the skin back saw inContinue reading “Joan of Arc”

Castlegate Castlegate. The word silently rolls around the interior of my mouth. I practice its formation in my mind before I let the sound slip from the angular contortion made by my lips. The vowel is pronounced flat, Castlegate: suggesting something simple and improper about this inconspicuous dot, small and black, that sits in isolationContinue reading “Castlegate”

I know you all find it hard to read or think about what I have gone through. I know this. Do not worry – that is okay. What I want you to know is this… I am a fully functioning adult, I have been through every healing therapy known to heal all the damage inContinue reading “All of you…”

From the age of 13 to15, I lived a vagrant life on the streets of a small Northern town. Fleeing a violent psychopathic father: I had no choice but to seek hedonistic escape in pubs and clubs. Men of ages beyond my comprehension were only too willing to trade my offer of myself, willingly –Continue reading “Prostitute.Child.Girl.”

Tattoo Love Theirs was a love of crushed beer cans with peeling beige paint and hair tangled in loose broken twigs. He’d carved her name on soft skin at the incline of his right hip: Stace. Some declaration of love.  Her nails bore the remnants of blue and green chipped varnish. Shorn ridges, bitten aroundContinue reading “Tattoo Love”

Read my intro to my unique story on a life lived with endometriosis and how I dealt with the devastation it brought into my life. https://stellamchughwrites.com/endometriosis-a-story-of-life-lived/

I know I know the sexyou had beforeme – was the type –where: she stoodexposingher clitorisfrom theother side ofthe room. Pouting –Pornography –ExclaimingCan you come ? You – in the other corneron your kneespenis in hand. I see –the distancebetween your penishand and her pulledback fingers. Like neither ofyou have beenshownSexLoveConnection. She makes you bellycrawloverContinue reading “I know”

That Aint My Dog… And the black girls sit on the wall as an ambulance pulls up on the road behind their backs. Oblivious, they sit pulling at their hair, jumping forward when talking, making overt gestures for No! and Yeah! The girl in the pink top with Dream 1969 blazoned across her chest picksContinue reading “That Aint My Dog…”

Map Do you have a map ?Mine are crumpledfolded wrong, upside down –covers dog eared, place names unclear –Now a days. If – I took my long metal ruler,ripped creased map pages along the sharp edge-left them on the table – You could place each one-arrange inorder that rejectsthis old geography.Form a new landscapewhereneither ofContinue reading “Map.”

Are we? Are we reduced tosolitary states of isolation.Where neitherhave skill or toolto form relationships. Iwantto avoid the wholepainful mess –Go on holiday – fly around the globewith one steady wingdropping to earth – as I see fit –Sit in sunned stone courtyard Wondering –If you are at a morning tablelifting the newspaper andtea cupContinue reading “Are We”

Me and You I’ve put all the clothes I’d wearInto the wardrobe –hung them on hangers,brushed out the creases,closed the door.Placed the tinykey on the dressing-table –for you whenthe house abandonedechoing and empty of me. There will always be partsto take out, look at, admire.Feel the weight of fabric, examineseamstress sown hemsand cuffs.Silks, tweeds andContinue reading “Me and You”

Baggage Your careless motherwounds –my savagefather –propels usto grey clouds. Off our heads –Our damage spiralling above. Our love amagnetic field –if I turn from you or you turn from meeither will be propelled by ions –rendered specks of shiny dust thatI can blow from my handleaving itempty. Your back – to my facegives riseContinue reading “Baggage”

Women I wonder what you knowof women.You claim to. My motherHad a large bosomNever showed itTo all and sundry. The only timeWas when she woreV – neck, light blue crimplene,Men would make her smile, she’dthrow her head back in fitsOf laughter my fathernever gave. My Auntshe woreEstee LauderPowdered her nosefrom a gold mirroredCase – herContinue reading “My Mother”

MaybeGod has playedsome trick on meAlways –Devoid of love My familySweptto a distantshore.A placeI have no map for. Left me dislocatedAlonewithout walls A storm likeNo other. The oceanI wept-Still –never enough. Tried torepair myselfwith old threadOn spoolLeft by myMother.Threaded the needlein the dark.Felt the sharp endedpoint draw tiny specs ofwet warm blood. Was it inContinue reading “Devoid”

A Christmas Psychosis. Everybody’s talking about Christmas. How they are going to spend time with their families. I won’t be. I haven’t done for many years. Why? A good question. One I’m not even sure I can answer.  I don’t have one, a family of my own and I don’t have one I belong to.Continue reading “A Christmas Psychosis”

I wish you’d told me-How much it’dhurt whenyou left meforever. A place –we both knew. Remember – whereOur mother left. You atop of thegreen carpet of stairs,worn when our feet were little.Going up to bed and bouncing downfor breakfast, then school.Me at the foot – holdingmy mother’s hand.Her breath unableto fill the wordsShe said. YouContinue reading “Sister”