Private Hell

"What do you call pain with no bruises?" A prison sentence that doesn't end at release.Born from the author's vigil beside a best friend held in three private prisons in England, PRIVATE HELL is a blistering collection of poems about a system that unravels the mind instead of repairing it. These pieces chart neglect and humiliation, the gaslighting that turns pleas into "problems," the endless waiting that grinds a person down to a number-and the stubborn, flickering will to stay whole.Amid the silence are the stories we rarely hear: neurodiverse prisoners, including the one in four with ADHD, punished for symptoms instead of supported for needs. Here, repetition becomes a heartbeat; broken promises, a refrain; resilience, a thin but unbreakable thread.Urgent and unforgettable, PRIVATE HELL gives voice to those prisons were built to silence. It is witness. It is warning. And it is a demand: that punishment must never cost a person their mind-or their soul.