Kirrah Payne

Poet and I know it🖤💜🫶🏽

Twenty hours in a two-metre square,

Just me, my thoughts, the heavy air.

A swag, a bottle, pages to fill,

And silence louder than any hill.

They say sit still and face your mind,

But no one tells you what you might find.

Because silence can cut, silence can heal,

It can bury the hurt or make you feel.

I’ve known these walls in a darker way,

Not as a challenge, not for a day.

But under white lights, watched by eyes,

Where nights felt endless and hope ran dry.

The quiet back then was a dangerous place,

A storm with nowhere safe to escape.

Each second echoed, sharp and deep,

And even the daylight struggled to keep.

But now I sit in this box once more,

Not the same person I was before.

Still carrying scars, still learning to cope,

But holding tighter to fragments of hope.

And strangely enough, what hurts today,

Is seeing how close I came to fade.

To look back clearer, with steadier breath,

And realise how near I stood to death.

So for twenty hours, I’ll sit and stay,

To help change what we’re scared to say.

That mental health isn’t weak or shame,

And silence shouldn’t swallow pain.

Because sometimes healing starts this way,

With space to think, with time to stay.

And maybe by speaking after the fight,

Someone else will hold on through the night.

20 Hours of Silence for Youth Mental Health.

I’m taking on the 20 Hours for 20Talk Challenge which will see me sitting in a 2×2 metre square in a warehouse, alongside 400 other participants, with no talking and no technology for 20 hours. All I’ll have are the essentials I bring with me: a chair, sleeping mat, journal, water, and food. No distractions.