The last two years have felt like I have shed layers of myself, whilst discovering new ones. I have learnt so much about me- my fears, my insecurities, this bottomless pit of love and my capacity for empathy (which seems endless- not a good thing, I must add).
Every opportunity I have had, I have written more poetry. My newfound voice in writing appears to be a more mature, self-assured, confident voice, though sometimes pouring words on the page can be painfully vulnerable. And when I read the words back or hear them (without sounding arrogant), I am really proud of the woman I am growing into, and the journey it’s taken to get there. My deepest hope is that there is more to come. Although I do need to be careful for what I wish for :)
The last two years, especially 2025, have felt somewhat like a rebirth. And so I figured if I did another spoken word album (The first one was called ‘Stuck with you’), it would be called ‘Rebirth.’
A big shout-out to Renaissance Studios for this collaboration, and to a dear friend, Hashim Shamsi, who has composed new music for this project.
In case you aren’t aware, some of my existing tracks are available to listen to on Spotify/iTunes. I am also plugging in Hashim’s lovely work.
Spotify Anisa Butt
Hashim Spotify
If you type Rebirth in Google, the Wikipedia definition that comes up is for ‘resurrection.’ Firstly, how apt is that?!
Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new lifespan in a different physical form or body after biological death.
Secondly, I love this definition because it captures the essence of a lot of my poetry for this album. The track I have included in this post is especially about the process of healing, because when you’re growing into something/someone new, that process isn’t pristine. It’s messy. And because it’s so darn messy, you have to heal before you can begin to create a new version. I want to use the metaphor of having an injury. You cut yourself, and you bleed. You clean the cut to the best of your ability, removing some of the debris (if there was any), preventing any chance of infection, cause sometimes when you’re wounded, bacteria can get inside before you realise. That wasn’t supposed to rhyme, but it did :) You then commence to cover it with a plaster, a temporary band-aid. It provides some sense of relief, preventing you from doing further damage, but the healing hasn’t happened; it’s just there, existing. It’s covered up, not always obvious to the outside eye, but it hurts. It still hurts.
If you’re brave, you may take off the plaster at night to let the cut air out a bit, speed up the healing process, but the cut doesn’t disappear overnight, no matter what you do.
Healing takes time.
I look at an old scar on my right hand. No special memory. I was in a food technology class in high school, using an oven glove which had a hole in it, and it touched the hot tray. Ouch! But has faded so much over the years that unless you squint and get real close, you can’t see it anymore. I can’t feel the pain anymore. But I know it was there and that event happened.
We can’t erase the past, but we can decide to let the past teach us something new. And we can also decide whether or not we carry these lessons into our future. I called this track ‘Growth feels like war,’ because it isn’t a linear process.
"I take five steps forward and ten steps back. I follow all the 7-step hacks to healing, to grieving, stop people pleasing, building self-worth, hijacking the brain to retrain it, build new neural pathways, but I keep finding myself in a traffic jam, wanting to procrastinate on socials for dopamine again."
I wish I could say it was easy.
This album is for anyone going through that messy process of figuring out who they are today. Separate from the past. It’s for those taking their time to understand their conditioning and patterns, the way they self-sabotage, the way they abandon themselves to keep the peace, and what their fundamental needs are. It is about being unapologetically yourself again and figuring out what that means. I want to say it’s also for those who have come out the other side of this work, but the work never really stops, does it? Isn’t life about shedding and beginning again? Perhaps the less we resist this, the more at peace we will be.
“When I see people stand fully in their truth, or when I see someone fall, get back up, and say, ‘Damn. That really hurt, but this is important to me, and I’m going in again. My gut reaction is, ‘What a badass.’” – Brené Brown
I hope you resonate with the poem, and more importantly, I hope it inspires you to keep stepping toward your truth. This journey is one of self-discovery, and the more I document it, the more I realise who I am and what I actually stand for. Reading old work makes me realise how far I have come, especially on days when I feel like I’m making progress.
If you want to stay tuned with everything album-related and otherwise, please support by subscribing to my Substack. I hope you share it with people you love and care about, those who are currently in the mess, unable to see the light at the end of the tunnel, those who have come out the other side, only to realise there’s a lot more where that came from…and those, who may not have developed an appetite for doing the deep work but could do with a little nudge.
Love & Light
Ani x
P.S. I would love to hear your thoughts on this one.
To hear more, visit anisabutt.substack.com
