A Lament for Lost Creations : The World Needs Your Messy, Imperfect Magic

Do you ever have a memory rise up out of nowhere, so vivid it feels like it’s happening all over again?

The other day, I remembered being on a beach, many years ago, before I had Theo—late luteal phase, riding the edges of a generous microdose—when, out of nowhere, I started full-on ugly crying. I wasn’t just crying; I was mourning. Mourning all the art, poetry, literature, and inventions that were never made because people didn’t believe in themselves. It felt like an ache too big for my body to hold, like the grief of a world that could have been. And maybe it was dramatic, 

There’s still a peculiar ache that stirs in me when I think about all the art, music, poetry, inventions, and ideas that never made it out into the world. Not because they weren’t good enough, but because the people who carried them were too afraid to breathe life into them. It’s a grief that transcends time—a mourning for the beauty that could have existed but was buried beneath fear, self-doubt, and the weight of the unknown.

How many symphonies were silenced by the whisper of “Who am I to try?”

How many poems turned to ash in the minds of those who thought, “It’s not good enough”?

How many breathtaking inventions were never born because someone decided the risk wasn’t worth it?

The tragedy isn’t profound because we’re owed these creations—it’s profound because the world is undeniably poorer without them. Each unwritten story, unsung melody, unpainted masterpiece is a missing piece of a puzzle we’ll never get to see completed. They’re fragments of the human spirit—vast, complex, miraculous—left locked away, denied the chance to exist, to connect, to transform.

And honestly, who’s to say that missing puzzle piece wasn’t the thing that could’ve stopped me from ugly crying on a public beach that day? Like, maybe if someone had just believed in their half-finished sonata or weird experimental novel, I could’ve been sitting there blissfully eating chips instead of having an existential meltdown. The moral of the story: the world needs your messy, imperfect creations—because who knows whose sanity you might be saving?

The Fear That Kills Creation

We live in a world where perfection is demanded and failure is punished. This pressure to get it right—to avoid ridicule, rejection, or misunderstanding—silences so many creative souls before they even begin. But the reality is this: no idea comes into the world fully formed. It’s messy. Vulnerable. Uncertain.

No wonder so many creative souls freeze up before they even start—who wants to risk the internet’s collective side-eye? No idea shows up ready to dazzle. It stumbles in awkward, and unsure of itself, kind of like Bambi on ice. And just like Bambi, it needs some time (and a little faith) to find its footing.

And yet, it is through this messiness that we create meaning. It’s in the vulnerability of showing up despite the fear that true art is born. To deny this process, to silence the impulse to create because of fear, is to rob the world not just of beauty, but of connection—of the potential for your courage to inspire someone else to face their own fear.

What We Lose When We Hide

Every great creation—every painting that moved us, every song that cracked us open, every poem that made us feel seen—exists because someone chose to be brave. They chose to risk being misunderstood, to face criticism, to fail publicly. And in doing so, they offered us a piece of themselves that became a part of us.

But when we let fear win, the world loses more than the creation itself. It loses the ripple effect of what that creation could have sparked in others. The courage it might have inspired. The doors it might have opened. When we bury our ideas, we bury not just our own potential, but the light they could have cast on others.

 One of the things I love best about myself is that I’m dramatic as hell, and I live for those moments when a feeling grabs me by the throat and shakes me around like it’s auditioning for the lead role in my inner monologue. When I'm ill I have a burning rectangle of suffering in my chest. When I am cross, the wild eyes of a wolf are carved into a woman's face.

There’s something intoxicating about sitting in the raw, over-the-top intensity of it all, letting it swirl until it feels poetic. Naturally, I channeled all that into these two poems, because what else would I do with my grief on a random Tuesday in January?

Ode to The Unmade

ink curdles in the throat of your pen,

a thousand unborn galaxies thrash in its bile.

bone flutes wail in the graveyard of ideas,

while the shadow of a masterpiece hums

through the hollow caverns of your chest.

Aborted Dreams

All the aborted dreams,

Silenced before their first breath,

Linger like shadows in the womb of time,

Unpainted, unsung, unlived.

A snowdrop crushed underfoot,

Before it ever saw the sun,

Buried in the frozen earth.

A starving body, trembling and frail,

The feast untouched, its sweetness stale.

What was meant to nourish, left to decay,

A gift ignored, wasting away.

A cure scrawled on a napkin,

Forgotten in a trembling hand,

Its promise crumpled, cast aside,

While the sick still weeps for answers.

What could have been—

The sacred force of life itself

Knocks at the door of your spirit.

Who are you to turn it away,

To leave its gifts unopened?

A Call to Honour What Was Lost

This blog is a mourning, yes. But it is also a call to action. Let us honour the incredible art, music, poetry, and inventions that died unexpressed by choosing to create anyway. Not because it’s easy, but because it matters. Because the world needs your voice, your vision, your courage—no matter how imperfect or messy it feels.

Imagine what the world could be if we didn’t let fear stop us. Imagine the songs that could fill the silence, the words that could comfort aching hearts, the inventions that could solve problems we haven’t even dreamed of yet.

The ideas that have died in fear deserve to be mourned. But they also deserve to ignite a fire in us—a commitment to not let the same fate befall the ideas we carry. Let us create in their honour. Let us breathe life into the whispers of inspiration before they fade away.

Because what you create could be the very thing someone else didn’t know they were waiting for.

In creativity & connection

Rosie