There Is Nothing in the Universe That Hurts the Way You Do
I wrote this song when I started my sentence in June 2026.
This section publishes creative contributions mostly from currently and formerly incarcerated people. It includes short-stories, poetry, creative nonfiction, art, and much more.
If you have something creative to submit to us, we would love to read it, or see it, and publish it in About Time – please write to us!

I wrote this song when I started my sentence in June 2026.
Amber draws from a prison in QLD.
I’m a rapper and I thought I’d share one of the songs I’ve written.
Somebody’s Daughter Theatre offers women within the prison system in Victoria, the opportunity to participate in weekly art workshops.
I felt compelled to contribute so here follows a few submissions for your consideration.
Dear Dad – entering into a trance, muttering words of vines, love stories you wrote, were magnificent and great.
Oblivion comes at a price I will not pay, I look to you every time as I begin words I pray. Rest my weary soul upon this red I lay, as this body of mine grows fatigued by words I tire.
Do you see what I see? I can’t see what you see. If you could see what I see, and I could see what you see. What would we see.
I hated the kitchen on the outside but have learnt from being inside that it makes me feel wholesome and happy.

“I recognise that”, “that’s someone I know”, “I can’t place who, but that is someone’s smell”.

There’s irony, hypocrisy, fallacy, a vast ocean of distance to cross. The “saint”, the “sinner”, it’s lunacy, that the ignorant could save the lost.

I’m not belle of the ball, not the very least, but we have something in common, I’m in love with a beast. But the beast is not a person but a drug that I call meth, I’ve been talking to myself for hours, I’m running out of breath.

Nostalgia is a gentle haze, a soft and fading, golden maze, where time itself begins to blur, and memory’s touch is sweet and pure.

Don't fear my love, everything’s alright. Don't fear my friends, the future looks bright.

Love’s definition cannot be just one, not one, two or more but a tonne. Love is the greatest quality of them all, a verse written by the poet Paul.

I sit here watching the second-hand ticking by as it slowly keeps passing my time... And just as I thought the world can’t be changed it's an apocalypse of the mind.

My happy place is knowing inside my heart that I will do better for me. I’ll see the world in a different way.


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