Unspoken

What happens when the only way to be loved is to disappear? This spoken word performance dives into trauma, chronic illness, and the cost of staying in relationships that require silence and self-erasure. “The Terms of My Disappearance” is a poem about betrayal, survival, and the moment you choose to remain visible, even if it means losing someone. This piece speaks to anyone who has been called “...

Humiliation Ritual is a spoken word poem about silence, rupture, and the moment suffering becomes impossible to ignore. The poem unfolds in a hallway outside a closed door. Inside, conversation continues. Laughter moves easily between people. Outside, someone is calling for help. But the door does not open. Through the imagery of fire slowly filling a hallway, this piece explores a familiar patter...

Two Floors is a spoken word poem about the distance between survival and indifference. While voices and laughter carry easily through the floorboards above, someone lies below—waiting, fading, listening to a world that continues without them. With quiet intensity and vivid imagery, Kate explores the terrifying closeness of help that never comes, and the moment when the space between two floors bec...

In this spoken word poem, Kate reimagines the familiar fable of The Boy Who Cried Wolf through the lens of trauma and therapy. The Girl Who Cried Wolf asks what happens when the threat others dismiss is not imaginary—but internal. In trauma work, the past does not always stay in the past. It lingers as an intruder that circles the nervous system long after the danger is gone. The poem explores the...

If “I’m sorry” slips out of your mouth before you even know you’ve said it — this episode is for you. Apology Loop is a spoken word piece about the survival habit of over-apologizing: the way we shrink ourselves to stay safe, make others comfortable, and disappear before we cause disappointment. This poem explores people-pleasing, shame, trauma responses, and the lifelong work of learning to take...

In Don’t Feed the Animals, poet and nurse practitioner Kate Earley delivers a haunting spoken-word piece about empathy, control, and what it means to be “safe enough to love.” Through the metaphor of the zoo, this performance explores how care can turn to captivity — how survival, hunger, and gentleness are reshaped for the comfort of those watching. Part elegy, part indictment, Don’t Feed the Ani...

What does it mean to give something you never wanted to give? To say yes because no felt heavier? Put A Finger Down is a raw and haunting spoken word poem exploring themes of coercion, trauma, dissociation, and survival. Through visceral imagery and quiet devastation, this piece captures the weight of being made to endure—of being present in a body that is no longer yours. If you’ve ever felt like...

Reverse Triage is a taut, atmospheric spoken-word poem by Kate Earley about a quiet office hallway that turns into an unexpected scene of collapse and hesitation. With stark, cinematic language, Kate captures the suspended moment when everyday routine fractures—the hum of fluorescent lights, the echo of unanswered calls, and the fragile choice to act. Perfect for fans of contemporary poetry, narra...

In this raw and electrifying spoken word poem, pediatric nurse practitioner and patient advocate Kate Earley delivers a searing indictment of medical gaslighting, institutional betrayal, and the fight to be believed. Body of Proof speaks to every patient who’s ever been dismissed, doubted, or diagnosed with “difficulty” instead of dignity. Written after years of navigating life-threatening hypogly...

In this moving episode of Unspoken, Kate Earley shares “Her Name Means Light,” a poem born from friendship and witness. Centered on Nour, whose name means light, and her brother Wael, the piece captures everyday survival in Gaza—water carried for kilometers, firewood cut from the ruins of bombed homes, and laughter that rises even from thrones of rubble. This poem weaves together the tenderness of...

n this episode of Unspoken, Kate Earley reads “The Last Pages of a Genocide,” a haunting testimony that refuses erasure. This poem confronts the politics of silence and complicity—those who turned away, justified brutality, or rewrote history in the aftermath. Through unflinching imagery and stark witness, Earley names calculated cruelty, collective amnesia, and the weaponization of language itsel...

In this gripping spoken word poem, Gaza Is Not a Metaphor, poet and humanitarian Kate Earley strips away the euphemisms and demands we face the brutal reality of mass starvation under siege. This episode of Unspoken confronts the politics of silence, the ethics of witness, and the cost of global inaction — through the voice of a child who dreams of bananas in heaven. A haunting meditation on genoc...

In this episode, Kate reads Birthright, a searing poetic reckoning with the myth of entitlement and the weaponization of heritage. Through the imagined lens of a North American tourist on a Birthright trip, the poem interrogates what it means to claim indigeneity without ever touching exile, war, or loss. Against the backdrop of occupied Palestine, it contrasts curated narratives with lived devast...

In this episode of Unspoken, Kate performs “If They Would Just,” a searing spoken word poem that dismantles the hollow excuses and dangerous detachment surrounding the genocide in Gaza. From hostages to humanitarian aid, forced displacement to selective empathy, this poem interrogates the phrases we hear too often—“If they would just surrender,” “If they would just be thankful,” “If they would jus...

In this episode of Unspoken, Kate performs “Apocalypse Fatigue”—a spoken word piece confronting the privilege of disengagement in the face of ongoing genocide in Gaza. While children burn and mothers scream through rubble, much of the world scrolls past, citing “apocalypse fatigue.” This poem explores the emotional distance of comfort, the dilution of empathy in the digital age, and the chilling n...

In this episode, Kate shares a haunting spoken word poem titled The Gaza Strip Is the Length of My Morning Walk, reflecting on the dissonance between curated Canadian comfort and the devastation in Gaza. Walking through Yorkville’s lilacs, luxury bakeries, and quiet parks, the poet draws a devastating parallel between three kilometers of peace and the same stretch of land where children dig throug...

In Season 9 of Unspoken, titled “Look Away”, spoken word artist and advocate Kate Earley confronts the world’s silence on the genocide in Gaza through searing poetry, lived witness, and uncompromising truth. This season explores themes of Palestinian survival, systemic starvation, medical apartheid, and the emotional cost of bearing witness when so many would rather look away. Featuring poems like...

In this episode of Unspoken, Kate performs her original poem “Ungovernable”: a fierce, tender exploration of what healing really feels like for anyone who’s had to make themselves small to survive. This spoken word piece challenges the myth that healing is always soft, gentle, or palatable. Instead, Kate asks: What if healing makes you louder, clearer, and harder to control? Blending personal trut...

What does it cost to be wanted? In this raw and lyrical spoken word poem, Kate Earley unpacks the quiet violence of being “palatable”—the pressure to shrink, sweeten, and shape oneself into something desirable at the expense of authenticity. The Art of Being Palatable explores hunger, shame, femininity, and the quiet grief of learning to be lovable by disappearing. A must-listen for survivors, art...

In this raw and furious spoken word poem, Only Palatable When Starving, Kate explores the devastating reality of eating disorder recovery that is only accepted when it stays silent and small. After years of starvation, she finally finds her voice — only to be punished for it by the very clinician who once promised to stay. This piece rages against the betrayal of recovery spaces that demand compli...

In this haunting and lyrical spoken word piece, Anorexia Mirabilis, Kate explores the lasting scars of emotional neglect, trauma, and the deep-rooted shame of needing. Drawing from the history of canonized self-denial, she gives voice to the parts of herself that learned to equate hunger with holiness and silence with safety. With visceral imagery and raw vulnerability, this poem speaks to survivo...

In this poignant episode, we present “Requiem for a Body,” a raw and visceral spoken word poem that delves into the arduous journey of reclaiming a body ravaged by years of restriction and starvation. The piece explores the intricate intersections of trauma, eating disorders, and survival, capturing the paradox of recovery—how nourishment, after prolonged deprivation, can evoke sensations of both...

In this opening episode of Spoken Season 8, titled Hunger Isn’t Holy, poet and nurse practitioner Kate Earley introduces a new season centered on the lived experience of eating disorders—beyond the stereotypes, beyond the numbers, beyond the aesthetics. With raw honesty and lyrical precision, Kate explores how disordered eating can become a language—especially for those whose pain was never transl...

What if your questions were too sharp, too fast, too much?  In this episode of Spoken, poet and nurse practitioner Kate Earley shares The Cost of Asking Why—a raw, lyrical reflection on growing up with undiagnosed autism and ADHD. Through childhood memories, clinical encounters, and moments of quiet rebellion, this poem explores how curiosity becomes criminalized when it comes from a neurodivergen...

In the Season 7 premiere of Unspoken, Kate Earley introduces a new series of spoken word poems exploring the raw, often invisible experience of living with autism and ADHD—especially as a woman. This season challenges the labels of “too much” and “not enough,” examining how neurodivergent people are often misread, dismissed, or silenced for simply existing as they are. Through poetry and reflectio...