Live Poetry | Stockholm Bränneri

This week, I brought my demons with me — onto a stage.
At Stockholm Bränneri, during an event hosted by Stockholm Poet Society, I performed My Demons, a spoken poem pulled straight from my diary. The piece was accompanied by raw, visual imagery — a work that reflects an inner journey: learning to sit with what’s dark, and becoming more at ease with the parts of myself I once avoided.

This wasn’t just a reading.
It was exposure.
It was honesty, unfiltered and alive, shared in a room full of strangers who chose to listen.

I’m deeply grateful to have shared this evening with so many powerful poets — voices that touched, challenged, and comforted. Thank you to everyone who opened up, who spoke, and who stayed. What a gift to be among those who dare to share something real.

Here is the piece I read:

My Demons

They don’t knock.
They slip through cracks
in my voice,
curling in the corners of my eyes
when no one’s watching.

I collect them —
Shadow-friends,
who came before I knew words.

They speak in silence,
pull at feelings
I buried deep,
and play where pain
still echoes.

Always near.
Always awake.

I tried to hush them
with distraction,
noise,
smiles that didn’t belong to me.

Sometimes I let one die —
so another version of me
could be born.

Other times,
I strangled one —
brutal,
silent,
deliberate.
But from its ash,
two more rise.

These are the rules.
They multiply.

Me and my demons?
We don’t speak.
They know the rhythm of my silence,
how my breath catches
when a voice sounds like his.

I’ve curled up on the tiles on the bathroom floor
not crying,
just… folding.
Like paper.
Like breath.

And they are there —
Not fixing,
not saving —
just witnessing.

And somehow,
that is enough.

I’ve become
colder.
Stronger.
And harder to reach.

Sometimes,
they hold me better
than anyone ever has.

Other times,
they drag me under
just to remind me
I can still drown.

They no longer hide —
they stretch out beside me,
flickering at the edge of my steps,
shifting shadows
into something I can face.

They lead me inward,
through the places I once avoided —
not to haunt me,
but to help me remember
what still pulses in the dark.

And sometimes,
they don’t light the way —
they teach me
how to walk
in shadow.

They remind me
that strength isn’t quiet lips
or well-practiced smiles.

Sometimes,
it’s trembling legs
that keep moving anyway.

Sometimes,
it’s arriving
while falling apart.

They’ve taught me to stay,
to breathe through the sting,
to sit with the ache
and ask it why.

Sometimes, they speak —
not gently,
not with softness,
but with truth.

It cuts…
But it frees me.

And I …
I become someone new.

🖤
BJÖRG