This work was first published in Spread the Word’s Young Writers Collective Anthology, 2025. This anthology stands as a testament to the courage, creativity, and growth of a remarkable group of young poets who have spent seven months exploring the power of language and self-expression. The anthology is more than a collection of poems—it is a celebration of emerging voices, of stories told with boldness and vulnerability.
All of the poems can be read here on our website, or you can download the Young Writer’s Collective Anthology to read as a PDF.
Meeting the Fates In A Hospital Wing of Old Memories by Dominique Vincent
I was offered a choice
and that choice breathes like fatal medicine,
blank sheets that act as gravestones
and the looped echoes of heart monitors
no longer plugged in.
I stand in a hall that no longer holds lifelines,
untethered, stranded by lifts that never stop
and rooms that always look the same.
‘Do you want to forget or to remember?’
The question ushers in silence
and three figures now stand across from me
eyes covered by cloth.
They hold my life in their hands.
“Rough”, they say, “unfinished”.
They bring it to their lips and pucker.
Sour, like yearning for a land
whose only legacy are stories crafted in the mind of a child.
Not stolen, not gifted,
woven together with scavenged pieces:
small treasures from my grandma’s suitcase
scans of photographs aunty refuses to part with
and a cassette of a sermon delivered
by my great grandfather.
Do you want to forget or to remember?
I tell them the truth.
That this abandoned hospital I wander
feels familiar and I have to find out why.
Why there is never enough disinfectant
to disguise the different ways death can oppress
like in names forgotten or records burnt.
Why I can’t shake restlessness that rings like tinnitus
Why I feel like I’ve forgotten before
and it led me back to this place.
About Dominique Vincent
Dominique Vincent (she/her) is a poet and filmmaker born and raised in South London. She has a Bachelor’s in English Literature and Film from the University of Reading. She was a part of the 2nd Iteration of the V&A’s Inwrds Cohort in 2024. Her work covers the different dimensions of Blackness particularly through the lens of archiving and reclaiming history. Dominique’s Sierra Leonean Heritage is also a common theme in her work.