A collection of writing from our talented writers, including poetry, creative writing, journalism and think pieces.
Astrid Valentine
Church Sweat
I was born wired differently
with my religious rebellion.
I can’t recall if I even knew the Lord.
Not like my Nana, with her holy line;
Making the devil pay her phone bills—
faith given by the Lord.
My secret, bound at the gate of the Devil’s lips.
I walk in
with gasoline at my fingertips.
The pews are my furnace.
I sit with her, and she complains
that she’s cold.
Do you think she’d still love me?
Would she embrace my warmth,
and sit by my side?
Would anyone in my family want to embrace me?
Or would I be stuck,
warm and alone.
I would say:
It is better to shiver together
than to melt alone
And then I would burn.
Sophie Spencer
A Childhood Videotape Circa 2013
Quick— start the tape where the light hits the windshield.
The light is the high, thin gold of a suburban July,
a honeyed brightness that bleaches the hedges,
scabs over the salt-stunted boxwood, burns the
lawn down to its straw roots, so let the tape
drag its belly, let the tracking lines bleed.
I am the slope, my father’s shoulder at the small of me,
breathless, pretending he still had the seat,
the moment he let go and the wind filled my body,
Keep going, he said, Keep going.
I am the patience of trees, the panic of birds,
the trick knee from falling off a fence
and the applause that never came.
I am the smell of my brother’s hair,
the pulse of him keeping time with me,
the conspiracy of our bug hotel,
architects of the dirt, hands pressing
sycamore corridors into damp earth.
It is a mass grave now, a collapsed cathedral
of twigs and spit. The earth is a hungry, impatient thing.
It didn’t even wait, Daddy. It simply opened up and took them
and it swallowed the iridescent wings and the frantic clicking legs
and we didn’t even get the chance to name them.
See, kid, the first lesson of loss—
the things you love will always be smaller
than the holes you dig for them.
The dirt settles back into its disguises
as the afternoon tilts westwards. The camera holds
too long on the empty place, the tape stutters,
pixels tear open, the image burns into
the white noise of summer heat,
but look, look again—
I am the grit left deep inside the wound, I am driving
into the dark, the headlights showing me
how fast I am losing the trees, the map rubbed thin
by so many fingers that the river has become the sea,
I am the rust on the swing set, the orange stain
on a palm that only wanted to fly,
please, I am so many lost things now,
so many voices calling from the same small body,
I don’t even have a place to put myself down.
But look, look there, at the top of the terrace,
see how the light hits the windshield?
Notes on an Epoch-Making Evening by the Garden Door
We were sitting outside after dinner and someone was telling a story I had already heard I knew where it was going so I started laughing before they got to the funny part They told me to shut up There was a dog under the table that wasn’t ours and someone gave it a piece of bread and it ate around the butter This is how people must have lived for thousands of years And I used to think a place became yours when you had been there long enough but the dog had only been there for twenty minutes Perhaps we are too ambitious about what it means to be somewhere Someone had brought out the good plates but there was nothing good to put on them The kitchen clock had been taken down because it was running seven minutes fast For God’s sake has anybody seen my fucking dog
Leone Goate
On Being Loved
My love is full of energy, bouncing off everything in my orbit. It jumps and flits around ready to hit any target in its vicinity. My love is full and plentiful, but there is one person in particular it seeks. The only person to crack me in half when I feel explosive. This is a crack which starts as a chip in my skin, skin that crawls with irritation and annoyance. The chip becomes a fracture and webs its way around me entirely until I can barely hold it together. I try with all my might to hold on and keep everything pieced together, but how could I possibly fight my mama. The woman with a heart so big she had no choice but to take out a piece and share it with me. She took that fleshy lump and gifted me a fraction of her, so in moments like this it is futile to think I could resist the woman with such an absolute understanding of love. I let go of my edges and accept all I am given. It bundles me up and reminds me I am just a fraction of the biggest warmth I know, and I may always return to my source so long as I accept all its offerings.
An Unlikely Sweet Spot
I wring my damp hands together and furrow my eyebrows. I’m stressed, I am so incredibly nervous at the prospect of doing this. The whole walk there my jaw grinds like an industrial sander and I think I can taste the remnants of what were once a pearly white set of teeth. All gone, fed to my anxiety as an offering to quell my feelings but unfortunately it was all in vain. My thumping heartbeat persists, so now I have no teeth and I’m sweaty and entirely uncooperative towards this whole idea. Surely I don’t need a job that badly. I try to reason with myself, but it’s a losing battle because I’m already there (well, I’m half way into the walk down the hill, which means an extra 10 minutes after I get to the bottom, which means no point in turning around now). It will be fine, right?
I arrive with damp hands, no teeth, and slightly out of breath… okay, maybe my heart is actually thumping out of my chest too. It tells me to run home as fast as I can and never ever look back, follow the breadcrumb trail because at least there’s no witch waiting to fatten me up and eat me there. And maybe there was a time in my life where I’d listen to my heart because surely it knows best, but today is not that day, so I must endure. Just this once I will be brave and accept my fate here.
It’s easy for me to remember that day two years ago, and how I felt when I had my first shift, because it felt like it would be my last too, in fact it felt like my last day anywhere because I’d rather have been launched into space than go through with becoming employed again. I never imagined that I might have actually enjoyed it there- no no no. What could I possibly like about spending my day in an ice cream shop full of all things sugary and nice? It didn’t occur to me once that this wasn’t a punishment I’d been sentenced to, but after being encouraged to try all 16 flavours in the freezer I thought ‘this might not be so bad’. So everyday after that I made my sweaty scary walk down the hill and somewhere along the way the majority of my nervous energy dissipated (which is bound to happen when you realise how much sugar awaits you), and replaced itself with excitement.
My excitement reminds me of how much I laugh every time I go to work, and how kind everyone is, and my favourite customers who stay to chat with me long after their ice cream has melted all over their fingers. It makes me feel special because there is no obligation for them to entertain this pseudo-friendship; I’m just the goods provider and I wonder if people have this kind of relationship with their dealer? In this setting I suppose I deal in all things sugar and they come to me for that fix, but I am happy to entertain these friendships. Yes, tell me about your kids and your work and your evil ex husband so I can give him a smaller scoop when he next comes in! I’ve somehow formed an alliance with these customers, and even if all they can offer me is advice, that is enough because it tells me they like me for more than just my scooping abilities and that warms my heart entirely.
Yannick McCready
How Much Does Linguistic Commonality Influence Someone’s Sense of Belonging in a Place? | The Role That Heritage Languages, Dialects and Sociolects Play
in Forming a Personal Connection to an Area/People.
Many monolingual people may not have the luxury that multilingual speakers have, in that they may never truly experience the feeling of belonging through the language others can use to connect with certain communities. Whether someone solely speaks the relative language, or whether the person is unable to communicate in a heritage language -they can often feel more distant to certain demographics of people (and therefore places) than those who share a communal language form.
Yes, it should be noted that everyone (to some degree) will have some shared, nuanced form of speaking to others. This is often what is considered a sociolect – a distinct way of communicating that demonstrates a bond amongst a group of people. You might feel a sense of belonging by using the same terms of phrase as your friend group, which is a sure example of a linguistic connection through a
sociolect. However, a sociolect does not offer the same scale of shared, cultural understandings like a dialect does, never mind a different language!
Knowing a specific dialect or speaking another language, assimilates someone with a community in ways that are otherwise hard to achieve. It opens an individual up to other perspectives to view the world. And sharing those nuanced perspectives with fellow speakers is arguably the glue that binds the community together.
As someone from Liverpool, the feeling of belonging between Liverpudlians is noticeable and it’s the unique, communal ways of expression and perspective that often draws the city’s people together, making it a place they feel at home.
This is further accentuated – mind the pun – when it comes to actual languages, as a developed vocabulary reflects the idiosyncrasies of that particular people. Danish and Japanese offer the best known examples with their respective concepts of hygge and kaizen. Both concepts show that their linguistic commonalities reflect a unique but shared view of the world – and that has the ability to bring that people together. So if you are able to communicate in an alternative language form, you probably feel a greater belonging to the related community, than what a monolingual speaker would.
Belonging: The Community Spirit and Togetherness in Women’s Football Fandom | Notes on The Enthusiastic Inclusivity Around the Top Level of Women’s Matches in England
Women’s professional football, as a product, is more raw and grounded than the better-known men’s equivalent (having historically suffered oppression from The Football Association itself, and also remaining subject to underfunding and pejorative societal views). This is often viewed as a negative differential when women’s football is contrasted with men’s competitions, but offers its supporters a key incentive: belonging.
As top-level, men’s professional teams become overwhelmingly globalised assets, the sense of real belonging disintegrates in the hands of a traditional fan. They can feel alienated and commoditised by a club that views the individual as a consumer, rather than a member. And that is only accentuated more – as a fan in men’s football – by the rising interest and demand to engage with a team. Clubs frequently use publicity stunts to fuel the illusion of personal belonging as a fan of a men’s team, but any contact and engagement on an individual level is rarely found across fanbases.
The top level of women’s football offers the humble antidote to this. Clubs recognise individual supporters as one of their own, showing a personal appreciation for their dedication and time. That is what fulfils a community spirit around a team, and draws supporters closer to each other. The closeness of a team to its fans impacts the level of emotional connection and investment in return. And that sense of belonging is a worthwhile reward when following a professional women’s team.
Regan Banks
Recently, the world lost two iconic, brilliant queer icons back-to-back. The news of Dolly Parton and Tim Curry passing away back-to-back for me felt like one of those TikTok trends when people prank people by saying celebrities they loved passed away. It was just a prank until my flatmate came and asked if I’d seen the news. The news rocked the world. Dolly Parton and Tim Curry were both extremely influential celebrities that did enormous amounts of work for the LGBT community and advanced rights for all around the world.
Tim Curry was born in 1946 in Cheshire, England. Curry studied drama at the University of Birmingham and graduated in 1968 with a combined bachelor’s degree in English and Drama. He went on to make his theatre debut, building his network until he was cast in the original The Rocky Horror Picture Show experimental stage play which was released in July 1973 at The Royal Court Theatre, which would change the trajectory of his career forever. It became an immediate cult classic, and its intense popularity led to it getting a film adaptation in 1975. Curry’s portrayal of Dr. Frank-N-Furter exploded his career, instantly solidifying him as a queer icon. He went on to have numerous famous roles in It, Home Alone, Muppets Treasure Island, and many more. In 2012 he suffered a stroke and shifted his focus to voice acting, which he enjoyed up until his peaceful death in August 2026 where he was surrounded by family in his home.
Tim Curry became a queer icon in an entirely different way than Dolly Parton did. Tim Curry embraced fearless self-expression, with his portrayal of Dr. Frank-N-Furter becoming one of the most recognisable queer icons of all time. At a time where queer people were fighting for their right to live as themselves without punishment, Tim Curry appeared on the big screen, dressed to the nines, corset, fishnets and heels on, face beat. Dr Frank-N-Furter became unlike almost anything audiences had seen before, something glamorous, seductive, sexy, theatrical, and completely unconcerned with society’s expectations of how a man should look or behave. For countless LGBT people, especially those growing up feeling isolated or different, that performance became proof that being queer was not something to hide, it was something worthy of celebration, love and representation.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show stopped being just a film almost immediately. It became a beacon of hope. Something for queer people to latch onto. Secret midnight screenings became traditions after the initial box office failure where strangers dressed in costumes and performed, they got to find a sense of community with people they had never met before. Long before universities had LGBT societies, and long before social media made finding queer communities easier, The Rocky Horror Picture Show created spaces where people could experiment with their identity without fear of judgement. For many people, those screenings became their first experience of feeling like they truly belonged somewhere. Tim Curry did not just play a character; he helped create a cultural phenomenon that continues to bring generations of queer people together over fifty years later and will likely continue to for decades to come.
Dolly Parton was also born in 1946 to a working-class background and wrote her first song at just age six, before first appearing on T.V at age ten. She continued to gain prominence throughout the 1960’s and 70’s with songs like Jolene and I Will Always Love You. Over the course of her career, she wrote an estimated 3000 songs and sold more than one-hundred million records. She continued to work extremely hard up until her death where she passed away in her home state of Tennessee peacefully, surrounded by family at the age of eighty after a short battle with cancer. Dolly Parton was many things; a singer, actor, philanthropist, businesswoman, storyteller, and icon to many across the world from all different walks of life, but today we will focus on her work as a queer icon.
Dolly Parton openly embraced the LGBT community and became a lifelong, devoted ally to the LGBT community despite coming from a traditional, religious southern background. A lot of Dolly Parton’s background and upbringing may cause most queer people to have their guard up, as a traditional, religious southern background has almost become synonymous with not being accepted. She spoke proudly about her Christian faith but believed that love and acceptance should never be conditional, showing queer people that there is a space for them in every community. Long before marriage equality became law, Dolly voiced support for same-sex marriage, she criticised attempts to target trans people in legislaton in Tennessee, arguing how painful such laws are for the queer community, and most importantly she refused to distance herself from her queer fanbase regardless of how politically controversial it may have become throughout her career. Dolly Parton also spoke of her love for queer people in her songs, movies, and interviews to ensure that her queer fans knew she loved them.
It was in one of her T.V interviews that Dolly told the audience, “If I’d been born a man, I’d have been a drag queen!” Dolly Parton never treated Drag as something to be feared, but something to be respected, an art form worthy of celebration. She famously entered a Dolly Parton lookalike competition and lost, receiving the least applause of all the acts. Dolly Parton consistently refused to identify herself with either side of the political spectrum to avoid alienating any side of her audience. However, she showed us that refusing to alienate your audience and staying silent against systems of oppression are not synonymous with one another. She funded multiple literacy projects across the world, helped fund the Moderna Covid vaccine, and supported queer people to her dying breath. Her philanthropy reflected a philosophy of love and belonging and her loss will be felt deeply by the queer community. She may not have identified herself with either side of the political spectrum, but it was clear what type of woman Dolly Parton was, and I think she was an extremely inspiring, brave individual.
Although they came from exceptionally different backgrounds, one a rural Southern Christian woman and the other a British actor whose life was dedicated to theatrics, both dedicated their lives to making the unseen feel seen and the unheard feel heard. Dolly Parton taught us that love should never be conditional and Tim Curry taught us that self-expression should never require permission. Together, they leave behind two very different but equally powerful legacies of belonging, and I hope to carry the philosophies of both with me throughout my own life, and their loss will be deeply felt by many.
Thank you for reading the first edition of Pinecone and rest in peace to Dolly Parton and Tim Curry.
Poppy Braka
Last year, after a tumultuous number of months, I was diagnosed with autism. Which was not surprising, and instead oddly validating. Like yeah, this makes sense, it explains why I struggled in my childhood to make friends, to be around people. The first couple of months in my first year at university felt a bit like a silent battlefield I had no idea I had even been drafted for. Some of the things I said were met with awkward laughter or darting eyes. I would leave pre drinks early to return to my room, open up whatever piracy site I was using to watch movies and I would peruse, but I always felt that familiar gravitation to I Saw The Tv Glow by Jane Schroenbrunn.
Now, I Saw The Tv Glow is a visceral horror, about Owen and Maddie who share a mutual love for an in-universe tv show called, The Pink Opaque. They have sleepovers to watch the episodes, and what seems like a normal adolescent obsession with a niche television show, turns out to be much deeper. In the final episode of The Pink Opaque main characters Isabella and Tara, psychically connected teens, have been trapped by the show’s big bad Mr Melancholy, they have been buried, forced into a horrifying fantasy where they are disconnected from their true bodies, their true powers, their true identities. Ultimately, the Owen and Maddie we know are the trapped souls of Isabella and Tara.
Later in the film, Maddie attempts to convince Owen to leave with her, that whatever is out there has to be better than their dead-end suburb, but Owen is freaked out and refuses. So two years pass, and suddenly one day Maddie appears and reconnects with Owen, explains to him that they are not where they belong, and she attempts to spur him to leave. But in the penultimate moment Owen cannot bring himself to cross the threshold to leave.
This movie made me cry, these mumbley teens captured something in me, something I had not been able to put to words for so long. The existential dread and horror would settle on your ribs, heavy, making breathing a chore, long after the laptop was closed. Watching Owen perform this ingenuine pantomime of a life he thinks is expected of him, knowing deep down that he is rotting in both a metatextual and literal sense, just because it was easier and attracted less attention than being with Maddie, than being himself.
In a study conducted by the National Library of Medicine, it was established that adolescents and young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder experienced higher levels of social isolation. I Saw The Tv Glow never fully states that Owen or any of the characters are autistic, but that did not stop me from seeing my autistic traits in the way they behaved.
It was after my third rewatch, when that fuzzy hard to breath feeling settled in, that I realised I was doing the same thing Owen was doing. Denying myself community, denying myself authenticity. So I threw on a knitted off the shoulder dress, and a pair of high heeled boots, and I marched to the nearest gay club and danced and spoke and shared instagrams and phone numbers. I was incredibly almost disgustingly sweaty by the end of the night and I had left early like I had before but I left with a friend. Soon that one friend became two, became five, became ten. I had people in my life and as the semesters rolled past I had a second year house with people who understood me, I had confidants, I had people that would stand up for me.
Now that I am in my second year as a twenty year old, I have realised that finding a community and being yourself is not always easy. It can be really uncomfortable, waking up everyday and authentically being yourself, dressing how you want to, speaking in a way that comes naturally, not putting on an act can be so incredibly hard. I still sometimes feel like I am on that dreaded social battlefield, however, now I have a community where I belong, with people who understand me. Now when I watch I Saw The Tv Glow, I no longer see myself reflected in Owen. I feel empathy for his character and in the open-ended finale of the movie I hope he joins Maddie, rather than my past nihilistic theory that he stayed and died in that suburban hellscape.
In the final moments of I Saw The Tv Glow, Jane Schroenbrunn uses a camera shot of a midnight blue road and pans over a message drawn in pastel chalks littered with flowers: ‘You still have time’. It’s so poignant, because you always have more time. More time than you realise. If you have just started university, or you’re in your final year, if you’ve never been to university, whether you’re cis or trans, autistic or not, you can find where you belong. It will not always be a comfortable experience. Maybe sometimes, uncomfortable and awkward things are really worth it.
Grace Sheridan
‘Belonging’ and the need to fit in is a universal want, that no matter how much a person denies wanting, everyone searches for. It is built into us; it is our psychology that works us to seek this sense of belonging so desperately. It is a psychological human drive to form and maintain relationships to belong to, it is not merely a want but a survival mechanism that exists within us in modern day. The earliest forms of humans needed belonging for a higher survival rate, belonging was equivalent to shared food and resources and those alone faced harsher environmental threats, belonging is a survival instinct, it’s innate. Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who created a ‘hierarchy of needs’ which was a pyramid of listed needs which humans needed to live and become their truest selves, he called this reaching ‘self actualisation’. At the very base of this pyramid is physiological basic needs that without we would die, for example food and water. The next tier is safety needs examples being, shelter and protection. The third, is needs of ‘love and belonging’. Maslow felt love and ‘belonging’ to be so detrimental to our lives that he listed it right after our basic physiological needs. Belonging is something we need to survive and become our true selves, this is why we search so longingly all our lives to belong to something or someone. Whether that be a religion, a family, friends, or a partner. The thought of social rejection, the fear of abandonment subconsciously eats away at us not just emotionally but psychologically. Studies in brain imagery have shown that social rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain, evidently proving how instrumental belonging is in our everyday lives, we crave it and fear social rejection so desperately. I think it’s comforting to know that this longing to belong to something is psychological and is drilled into everyone, not just you. The knowledge that everyone wishes to belong to something just as much as you, no matter what they show to the world, is somehow good, it makes people feel less alone.
