About

Some thoughts are easier to write than speak.

I Still Know My Name grew from that idea.

For years, writing has been one of the ways, I’ve tried to make sense of my own mind—the contradictions, the darkness, the moments of clarity, and everything that exists somewhere in between. Sometimes a poem can say what I can’t find the words to say out loud.

My name is Matthew Pettett, and this site is a collection of my poetry and prose exploring mental health, identity, addiction, survival, and what it means to keep going when your own mind doesn’t always make that easy.

These aren’t observations made from a distance. Much of what I write comes from lived experience, from things I’ve struggled with, questioned, survived, or simply tried to understand.

Some pieces were written in dark places. Others were written while looking back at those places from somewhere brighter. And some exist somewhere between the two.

I’m not here because I have the answers.

I’m here because I have something to say.

And perhaps somewhere amongst these words, somebody else will recognise a piece of themselves too.

That’s why this place exists.

I Still Know My Name.