May you be the you that you need you to be.

A long time in the making, one of my favourite poems is now available as a print. Written for a friend going through a hard time, while I was also going through a hard time, it would make a perfect gift (to a friend or yourself!). Another collab with the stunner Medley Design Studio, available both as the full text and a standalone line - in both a classy cream and a gorgeous brown - with a discount for a matching set. Edited down slightly to fit, full version available in my book Unashamed.

A3 Unframed print - Printed on 100% recycled and FSC paper in Leeds UK.

Full text reads:

It's not your job to make sure

others feel more comfortable.

You need not dull your glow

in the hope they might see.

You need not water down your core

to be more palatable.

May you be the you that you

need you to be. Unashamed.

We cannot help how others see us,

though we may well try our hardest.

How we see ourselves can free ourselves

to be ourselves regardless.

Home is where you can be open hearted.

Whether trapped or trapeze artists all

comes down to how we're harnessed.

Let us decorate and garnish any

reputations tarnished, despite it all

I still fancy our chances.

Let us not file away our edges in an effort

to be smooth, when the records show

the dents are how we get into the groove.

All that energy invested in the editing of you,

I hope one day you'll let it loose,

and let me be there when you do.

In the moments when your guard slipped

for a second or two, I could have sworn

I caught a glimpse and I saw heaven in you.

Unashamed.

We do those closest to us a disservice,

if we only ever let them see the small of us.

If we can open up enough to let them get

beneath the surface, there's so much more

to love if we can show them all of us.

The flaws in us. The force of us. The full-on

awe of us. The fine and coarse of us.

The fine print in the clause of us.

Call it what you want, there's something

calling us. And I have caught enough of you

to know that you're enough.

Any boxes they may try and stop you with.

Instead of building up a fort, let's make a rocket ship.

All the best bits of your story are still yet to be unfurled.

You are the caterpillar that becomes the butterfly

that flaps its wings to cause an earthquake

halfway round the world, you are amazing.

And if they try to rain on your parade,

let it remind you how much fun

it is to party while it's raining.

May you take up space

and stay there

unashamed.

Harry Baker