written for Jade Blackabee
There are a sequence of poems that began their lives inside the studio pictured below, coinciding with the start of a year of mentoring with Dr Kim Moore. All of them grew from an exercise journey that had begun in 2017, as a fledgling poetry career began to happen.
I’ve become friends with a number of the staff at my local Gym as a result. Jade’s infectious enthusiasm and single-mindedness has always been an aspiration point, but it was her willingness to give space to work at my own pace, using sessions as self-reflection and unexpected therapy that I am most grateful for.
I’ve learnt a new way to exercise in the last three years, and at the core of that has been an ability to focus physical exertion into a starting point for mental healing. This poem, which Jade owns a previous draft of, evolved in my time with Kim. It is, in essence a beautiful hybrid of my twin journeys towards greater mental and physical enlightenment.
Every Door
as I ran away from exercise
last week someone
the guest and her friend
quietly asserting class
not the one then at an end
called this process torture
once they too were nobody
secondary or grammar school
a daughter made to sit
exposed in badly fitting kit
on the muddy cold school
playing fields were never level
where the staff abstracted anguish
us without the next girl’s grace
countless teenage flicks and feigns
laughter stinging in the rain
punishment from exercise
that never left us fitter
every one not yet whole
muddle of ugly ducklings
moulting yearning to define
blank pages now notebooks
one day overflowing with
potential that a pantomime excised
this old bird will no more be denied
as someone cared opened a door
exit to escape life’s physical inertia
thanks to that teacher I am ready
pulling energy into a willing body
satisfied today this is enough
migrating south away from travesty
the anger which then flies into
a fist that jabs and crosses off
hurt and pain that came before
I stand in Lane 1 as a new contender
desperate prepared to open every door
Poem copyright S. Reeson © 2026
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