“It is difficult to ignore the story of a young person. When they are in pain, that pain seems all the more demanding because they are vulnerable and because their life still lies ahead of them ... I have learnt that the most important medicine they need from me is to listen to these stories, to hold them up, turn them around, and to let each young person then look back at them. They need me to be honest, and to hold what they have told me for as long as they want me to.”

In this collection of poetry Glenn Colquhoun writes to the young people he works with at the Horowhenua Youth Health Service. Tender and poignant, wondering and wry, here his words become small scissors, knives, bandages and balms. Gathered together they represent an inventory of one doctor’s consultations taken home, responses to those moments he might have woken in the middle of the night and wished he had said better.