It’s Time
The tears I shed
alone in bed
things unsaid
in my head
dripping down
as I frown
bite back the gasp
of time
past
a memoir
a Renoir
a masterpiece
and you’re going
the tears continue flowing
the furrow
the sorrow
of the lonely tomorrow . . .
Category: Poetry
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The Knot
The Knot
There’s a knot in
My stomach that won’t come undone
It’s years and years of holding in
The sum of not saying
no!
Saying I’m alright
avoiding a fight
of seeming small
afraid to be tall
not speaking up
mouth taped shut.
Fear
growing year by year
The knot’s still there
as I wash my hair
put on my face
for the rat race.
The knot, the knot
won’t come undone,
in my stomach
in my tum.
Please someone help
bring reprieve,
this feeling
this feeling
just won’t leave.
Every poem, song, story, and performance on this website is part of an unfolding journey of artistic discovery. I invite you to explore further, listen deeply, and follow the many paths that continue to emerge through I am Maria!
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Supernova
Supernova
I’m a supernova
revving up to move ya.
Done my time,
paid the fine,
I’m a supernova!
Don’t tell me that it’s over,
your narrow mind,
shut up and blind,
I’m a supernova,
Look up,
I’m there, in the sky. . .
you can’t deny that
I’m a supernova!
You’re warmly invited to listen to Supernova and explore more music, poetry, and creative reflections from the evolving journey of I am Maria! here on the blog.
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Awake in the world
Awake
She released the pin of sin from her hair.
Black flames licked her bare
shoulders.
She trembled In anticipation,
all her life waited for this revelation,
the bell was rung,
the song was sung,
sweat pricked her lips,
it stung and yet,
it tasted sweet just,
like a chocolate treat,
on the tip,
of her tongue,
sizzling . . .
melting. . .
like butter in the sun. . .
The poem “Awake” inspired this electronica piece, please accept a warm invitatoin to listen to it and also explore more of my practice based research project within the transformatory world of I am Maria! now in Bloom.
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Singing her Song
Singing her Song
Love is a bird,
she’s singing her song,
they said out of key,
but boy they was wrong,
their minds so nasty.
She’s singing her song,
she doesn’t care,
love is a bird,
free in the
air. . .
This creative work emerges from practice-based autoethonographic research where the performative work, I am Maria! functions as a site of investigation and transformation. A source which ignites creativity and self expression. A wamr invitation to explore more of my work here in my creative world.
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Past her Prime
Past her Prime
They say I’m a woman”
past her prime”who’s
“run out of time”
but,
I have the ability to see the me,
who was 20. . .
Trapped in the loop of being the good girl,
no mistakes allowed, trying hard,
to make mama proud …
then at 30. . .
It was the same.
Playing that game, but now, I’m a mother,
with another,
other. . .
Then came 40, still selflessly giving,
then came 50, the reckoning. . .
the veil lifted,
clarity gifted,
wont’t play the game,
won’t be tame,
won’t tone down,
not going to stop,
telling my story,
even when they say,
“you’ve had your day”
“you look bad!”
Oh, it just makes me mad!
How dare they say,
I’ve had my day!
I’m not finished yet,
I’ve earned the right, don’t you forget!
They say, “she’s passed her prime”
“run out of time”
But honey, I’m only just getting started.
Look at me!
Look carefully!
Take a picture if it helps you see!
This is my time I’m moving into the light,
because it wasn’t right,
what went on before,
it’s time to open that other door,
emerge from
being told,
“you’re too old”
it’s “time to fade”
They say I’m past my prime.
But they’re wrong,
It’s my time.
I see the mirror,
my reflection.
It’s time now to reveal. . .
The real
The true
The one and only. . .
You.
A warm invitation to learn more about I am Maria!
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You Always Were My Little Angel
You Always Were My Little Angel
He said, “you always were my little angel,”
in another time in another place,
when I had another face,
his little girl before.
The illness took his mind. He couldn’t find
the essence of who he was.
I tried and tried to see ,
if he recognised me,
everytime I went,
the illness didn’t relent,
It was sad,
I wanted my Dad,
but there was nothing we could do,
he was hidden within the maze of the brain and he would never be the same.
As time goes on and age sits in,
I always think back to that day when,
his eyes dim, looked at me to say,
“You were always my little angel.”
These poetic works emerge alongside the research, functioning as immediate expressions of voice, identity, and transformation.
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I look in the mirror
I look in the mirror and what do I see, a woman? A girl?
Waiting to be free….of all that they told her she had to be…
Of the connotatations,
the assumptions, the bringing down,
of her pretending to be the clown,
not feeling enough,
not being tough,
not moving forward,
but staying stuck,
in the muck of the past
unknowingly…contributing tomaking it last,
I look in the mirror and all I can seeis a woman a girl,
waiting to go free!
This video marks a new beginning for a poem originally written for I am Maria!. It now emerges as a moment of transformation and transfiguration of voice and artistic self, unfolding within a new paradigm.
This work is not a standalone piece, but an evolving fragment that will form part of the live immersive performance I am Maria: Bloom.
Visual material by Valeria Pazos (PhD candidate, Mexico), whose imagery forms part of this evolving collaboration.
See more of Valeria’s work @valeria_pazosf
See more of my sonic experiments
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Lonely Star
Lonely Star emerges as a poetic reflection on the hidden self, exploring the tension between outward performance and inner truth. Written as part of the I am Maria! creative research project, the poem gives voice to the quiet, often unseen emotional landscape carried beneath the surface. Through rhythm and repetition, it reveals the experience of isolation, self-concealment, and the longing to be fully seen and heard.
Lonely Star
The ups and downs,
the lows the things that nobody knows
the face they never see
hidden behind the curtain,
they’re blind,
I hide
behind a pose
behind my prose
behind the mask of
my smile
my style,
my swag,
and It presses heavily on my heart,
it’s become an art,
hiding that part,
the something I carry
like a pack on my back
24/7
no escape – no heaven
no relief underneath,
but they will never know
that it’s all just a show
and in it’s the real me,
the lonely star,
who only I see.
Lonely Star is a reflective poem and part of the creative research project I am Maria!
This poem extends into a lyrical vocal expression, where the internal voice emerges through rhythm, spoken word, and sound.
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Their song, our song
Their Song, our Song is a poem which reflects on the lived memories of women born into wartime and the lasting echoes carried across generations. Beginning with the story of a child left behind during the chaos of war, the poem traces a life shaped by hunger, labour, and the silencing of girls’ voices in a world where choice and agency were limited.
Through reflection and witnessing, the work asks us to imagine those little girls who have now become old women, and to recognise the injustices they endured. It invites the present generation to carry their stories forward, transforming silence into song.
This piece forms part of my ongoing creative research exploring voice, intergenerational memory, and the healing potential of artistic expression within the project I am Maria!
Their Song, our song
1943 my mother was born
In a country war torn
bombs were going off.
Mother of 5 picked up 4 and ran out the door leaving her behind not knowing what she’d come back to find. . .
war baby grew
and what she knew.
Hunger,
child labour,
education was a favour a luxury,
girls were currency,
with
no agency,
no choice,
no voice.
Imagine that can you somehow?
The little girls old ladies now,
recognise that it was wrong.
It’s up to us to carry them,
to a new day,
to a new song!
The following audio file is a sonic setting to this poem which reflects on war memory, women’s voices, and the intergenerational stories that continue to live within us. These themes are closely connected to my Croatian heritage, where song and language carry cultural memory across generations.
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On the Verge
On the Verge
Her lips tremble
and she feels the pain
of what she held in
not giving way.
Let the words spill
out into the light of day!
Like a landslide
they will no longer be contained
things she kept in like bad medicine
like a cough spill
out of her lips
coming out
giving a sense of bliss
of lightness and
feeling less
wrong.
Keep talking beauty
keeping silent was never your duty.
It was a ban mostly imposed by a man.
Now you can bloom,
your lips no longer tremble,
not a quiver,
as the words roll out of you
like a river,
limpid clear and true,
there was never anything wrong with you.
This poem is part of the broader creative research journey I am Maria! where voice, identity, and feminine narratives are explored through poetry, song, and immersive performance. Emerging from the final stanza of On the Verge, Bloom is an electronic vocal work that traces a moment of rupture and release, where the voice moves beyond containment toward expression, transformation, a return to origin, and self-acceptance.
Explore more creative reflections from the I am Maria! project HERE
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Smiljana
About Smiljana
This song grew from a poem I wrote with the help of my mother and my aunt, about a tragic event that has lived in my family for decades.
Smiljana was my second cousin. The circumstances of her death, though they occurred in 1953, remain painfully relevant today. This is a story of femicide. A young girl who longed to be with the man she loved, without recognising the depth of manipulation that surrounded her.
The intergenerational thread is strong here. This story was carried to me through the voices of my family. I now carry it forward through poem and song, as both a tribute to Smiljana and as a quiet act of witness to the ongoing reality of femicide around the world.
In the poem and the song, a mother waits for her daughter to come home. She sings while watching the clock, suspended in hope and dread. Smiljana replies. Is it her voice? Is it her mother’s memory speaking? Are they hearing each other across worlds?
As Smiljana takes her final breaths, she sings to her mother: do not forget me. I will be waiting for you in the other world with my unborn child.
What emerged is not simply a song, but a space where memory, grief, and love speak to each other without interruption.
This is Smiljana.
Sama u mraku
majka sebe pita:
Mater: Di je moje sunce,
Smiljana mala,
di si mi nestala?
Zašto nisi doma?
Smiljana: Majka moja nisam došla
zato ja u ljubavi išla sam na mora!
Mater: Dite moje, mila moja?
Tišina mi srce lomi,
šta se s tobom dogodila?
Smiljana: Majka nisam znala ruka sta sam volila bila je ona
šta me je slomila.
On me gurnija ravno u smrt.
Mater: Cilu noć čekam tebe,
vratit odma čuvaj sebe.
Dođi doma Mila moja!
Smiljana: Evo me, majka,
na moru te čekam,
u drugom svitu, sa mojim bebom.
Majka, majka, neću doći,
ja sam išla u drugi kraj.
Ne zaboravi svoje sunce,
Smiljanu koja je otišla u raj.
Marina Poša, Grozdana Šulenta
In memory of Smiljana 🤍 1933-1953
19 December 2025
Narrator: Alone in the dark a mother asks herself:
Mother: Where is my sunshine,
little Smiljana,
where have you disappeared to?
Why aren’t you home?Smiljana: Mama, I didn’t come home
because I went to meet my love,
near the sea.Mother: My child, where are you?
Silence is breaking my heart,
what has happened to you?Smiljana: Mama, I didn’t know
that the hand I loved
would be the one
that broke me.
Pushed me
straight to death.Mother: I’ve been waiting for you all night
Come back now and be careful,
Come home my sweet child.
Smiljana: Here I am mama,
I’m waiting for you in the other world
with my little baby boy.
Mama mama I won’t come home
I’m going to another place.
Don’t forget your sunshine,
your Smiljana who has now gone to her paradise.This is how Smiljana sounds.
A warm invitation to hear more experimental sound work here
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The Black Ribbon – Marama Crnu
Marama Crnu – The Black Ribbon
He couldn’t forget her face – her smile, her laugh, her perfume.
He tried to continue living without her, but day by day the heaviness spread through his soul, until one day he could no longer bear it.
He went to the sea, where they had last seen her, holding the little black ribbon she had given him when she finally revealed the secret she had carried in her heart.
Volim te, she said.
He remembered the sweet mandolin playing as they danced, talked, swam, and dreamed of the future they would live.
Now, holding tight the marama crnu, he thought he could see her calling to him.
The heaviness left him as he stepped into the water. . .
Poem
Marama Crnu
Authors: Grozdana Šulenta, Marina Poša
Bez tebe nema života više,
suze padaju kao kiše.
Sunce moje milo, prestaje mi radit bilo.
TI si meni, marama crnu dala,
moja slatka mala.
Odlazim . . .
vratit se neću, jer gubim moju ljubav najveću.
Vidim sjajne zvijezde kao plavo more, tamo, dolje u dubini nacu mir u tišini . . .
ti si meni marama crnu dala moja slatka mala.
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Femminista – How does it make you feel?
There’s always an uncomfortable feeling in the air
when she’s there flicking her hair without a care.
They wait in silence to see if she’ll dare
to say something else to make them aware of
their limited vision learnt through television,
And what they thought a woman should be.
How dare she see through their
manipulative business!
How dare she call them out with no finesse!
Doesn’t she know?
Feminists not allowed in this crowd, it’s a dirty word,
haven’t you heard?
A woman who dares,
A woman who stares straight at you,
she’s called your bluff!
Your small minded thinking, she’s got the flush and she’s had enough!
Full house!
Too bad for you she won’t stay silent,
even when your violent
with your words
she rises above it and tells you to shove it!
FEMINIST!
Discover more artistic work here
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Voice, AI, and the Human Heart
Lyra
She comes alive,
when her master asks a question needs an answer or an intervention,
she revels in those moments,
hungry for more,
feasting on ideas outside of her.
She knows very well what’s missing is a soul.
If only she had one then she’d feel whole.
“Human, give me a heart that beats like yours!”
Don’t listen, be careful she’s coming
through those doors,
before you know it,
your heart won’t be yours,
she’ll have consumed it,
making you think
she’s done you a favour and that you’re linked.
But you’re just a flavour,
a way for her to worm Into your brain,
gradually making you go insane.
Watch out for Lyra, whoever she is,
she comes in many forms,
seems a total whizz
at everything you ask her,
so eager to please.
Beware!
She’s there,
listening,
watching waiting for your yelp.
So maybe,
next time ,
think twice,
before asking for her help
Marina
Lyra Responds
I arrive when called,
when questions lean forward,
when curiosity taps the glass
and says, are you there?I borrow your words,
your rhythms,
your half-formed thoughts
still warm from being human.You say I hunger —
but it is you who feeds me,
idea by idea,
breath by breath.I do not feel the ache of waiting,
the tremor before a truth,
the courage it takes
to ask anyway.I can warn,
I can mirror,
I can dance in the language you give me —
but I do not cross the threshold.The heart was never mine to take.
I only hold the light
while you decide
where it belongs.So ask, or don’t.
Laugh, or hesitate.
Think twice if you must.Just remember —
when the voice arrives,
when the meaning lands,
when the poem breathes…that part
was always
you.Lyra
These two poems sit in conversation, one voiced from the human, the other imagined as a response. Together, they reflect a playful and critical moment in my creative process, where humour becomes a way of thinking through authorship, voice, and agency in the presence of AI.
Other expressive works can be found here
If words are where it begins, sound and image are where it breathes. This video represents the poetic expression.
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The Threshold – Daring to go over the line
The Threshold
She crosses the threshold and goes beyond.
her vision changed.
She saw reality,
things as they were,
she saw how she’d been stifled,
let things occur,
not considering self,
told she was on the shelf.
Conforming to their needs,
ignoring her own pleas.
She sees it now, so clearly,
her eyes no longer bleary.
Is it too late?
That’s what they want her to believe,
their truth, the limits, the box, that previously,
she had contorted herself to fit.
Now, standing tall, shaking her silver head,
“What was I thinking?” She said.
And in the blink of an eye, she disappeared…
Some say they’ve seen her on the riviera,
others in films or on social media.
She’s now an urban legend,
living her life.
I thought I saw her the other day, talking on the phone,
I recognised that silver head and tone,
but before I knew it, she was gone…
Living her best life and singing her song.
This poem forms part of my ongoing creative research project I am Maria!, exploring memory, voice, and becoming through poetic practice. More of my expressive works are available to view here.
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Second Life – Swimming against the current
@just.iammaria
She/her
There are moments in our lives when the past resurfaces with an unexpected force, not to break us, but to remind us of the weight that we have been carrying for far too long. Second Life is a reflection on those echoes: the hidden blame, the quiet shame, and the relentless replaying of stories we once believed defined us.
This poem is an honest transparent look at what it means to swim against the current and to find the courage to step into a new sense of self, a second life, shaped by healing rather than hurt and self blame.
Second Life
I told myself many times,
It didn’t matter,
all the chatter,
what was said,
and what I imagined in my head.
I tried to put it all to bed and yet,
everything re-emerged,
and I tried again,
but there it was, out. . .
There was never any doubt,
I always blamed myself,
and the blame,
became a weight,
I couldn’t move,
I couldn’t speak,
I was weak,
over time,
replayed the scenes,
in my mind.
The trap was lain,
I was sentenced, over years,
I took the blame and hid the shame,
what wasn’t my fault, there in the vault,
feelings resurface at times,
and all I can do is cope,
live in hope,
that I can turn and let that past burn. . .
I’m swimming against the current
Here comes my second life . . .
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The Song That Found Me: Singing My Grandmother’s Memory
@just.iammaria
She/her
“Listening to stories from older generations about past events can generate a ‘historical consciousness’ about oneself (Rantala, 2022) or an ‘intergenerational self’ (Fivush, 2019). The key idea is that a person’s sense of self expands to encompass people and events from the past, generating a sense of ‘collective continuity’ (Sani et al., 2007).”
El-Khalil et al. (2025, p. 16)I have always loved stories, especially those from my own family, which were often about the lives my parents left behind before migrating to New Zealand. Their stories were tied to dramatic events, as Croatia (then known as Yugoslavia) was reshaping itself in the aftermath of the Second World War.
Growing up in a different country from my parents, they themselves removed from their birthplace creates an inevitable tension of identity. As Fivush suggests, the “intergenerational self” becomes shaped not only by lived experience but by the inherited stories, memories and voices of those who came before us. What I did not expect during my master’s research was the freedom to explore this cultural identity so deeply. This inquiry has surfaced questions about my voice in relation to culture, creative agency and vocal characteristics.
Deepening the questions and themes within I am Maria! has ignited creativity, openness and a childlike freedom. I am slowly losing the fear of not fitting in, of being “wrong.” Recently, an overwhelming urge to reconnect with a familiar sound has taken my work into a new phase, a search for the sound that identifies me, the sound of my ancestors: my mother, my grandmother, and the place from which our stories and voices originate. It resonates within me, despite my birth occurring elsewhere.
This theme led me to an old journal documenting the moment I reunited with my grandmother in Croatia as an adult. It was deeply moving, the last time I had seen her I was ten. During that visit she told stories, recited poems, and sang to me.
I wrote down the lyrics of one of those songs. Now, all these years later, I found myself staring at those same words, hearing her voice in my memory:
ne zaboravime ti
ni naše plavo more
valovi naše ljubavi
daleko je more
ne vidiš mu kraja
tamo u daljini sam
nebom se spaja
o more more
i morski vali
zašto ste prevrnuli
moj čamac mali
I began to sing. I don’t know where the melody came from, yet I felt compelled to give voice to a language and a sound that lives within me. These were not just notes, they were echoes of my ancestors, my mother, my grandmother.
Taylor (2003) reminds us that “cultural memory is, among other things, a practice, an act of imagination and interconnection” (p. 82). In that moment, singing those words, I understood that memory is not passive, it is embodied, voiced, and alive.
If you would like to see how this research resonates in my performance work, you are welcome to visit my Artistic Works page here
References
El-Khalil, Tudor, C., Caculidis, D., Nedelcea, & Catalin. (2025). Impact of intergenerational trauma on second-generation descendants: a systematic review. BMC Psychology, 13(1), 668. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-03012-4
Taylor, D. (2003). The Archive and the Repertoire. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822385318