Semper Floreat is the University of Queensland Union's free & independent student newspaper.
25th of March, 2025. It was a Tuesday morning, I was preparing to log onto my zoom lecture, I heard a ding. I checked my phone to see a text message. “Uncle Ismail was at Nasser hospital when they bombed it” It was from my mother. My heart stopped. I couldn’t breathe. I started sobbing. […]
Continue Reading
Erasing Palestine – Rebecca Ruth Gould (2023) [Non-fiction] ‘Our silence is complicity. This complicity also silences Palestinians, keeping their experiences hidden from public view.’ Rebecca Ruth Gould’s Erasing Palestine is a well-researched exploration of free speech and the struggle for Palestinian freedom. Not only does it describe Gould’s experience in being accused of antisemitism for […]
Continue Reading
He came and left a rot inside her womb. She lay there naked curled around her blight that rotted till her famine would consume the ridges dug inside her skin that night. He told her he would build them both a home: A kitchen with a cross above the door. Then turned the bedroom to […]
Continue Reading‘ Burned leaf on the rubble cries EVACU language disintegrating Warnings from the Sky’ is a Senryu written in response to an image I saw of the remnants of an evacuation leaflet dropped by Isreal in Gaza. There was nowhere to evacuate to. The leaflet was torn by bombs from the very people that sent […]
Continue Reading
The following is an excerpt of a real journal entry I wrote in July, edited for publication and privacy. It is my attempt to word unspeakable violence, to mould the visceral with a vocabulary built for logic and softness. It is reflection, story, prose poetry, word vomit. I doomscrolled through videos of Gaza tonight and […]
Continue Reading
I mourn for Palestine A land of peace and olive trees A land that has seen nothing but suffering for 75 years A land that welcomed everyone with open arms, only for their people to be murdered by ruthless bombs They steal our lands and steal our farms and swear it is their birthright Then […]
Continue Reading
Good and honest disability representation can be hard to come by. I often wake up in cold sweats remembering Sia’s 2021 Autistic masterpiece Music (note the sarcasm). Misrepresentation of disabled people in media is often caused by a lack of understanding or demonisation of disability. As a disabled bibliophile, I had almost given up finding […]
Continue Reading
Mental illness has often been greatly misunderstood throughout history. Ignorance has fuelled stigma surrounding mental health conditions that sees its sufferers demonised, ignored, and shamed. Despite improvements in education and modern medicine, these damaging misconceptions continue to pervade modern culture and cause irreparable damage to those living with mental illness. However, art has long been […]
Continue Reading
The Brisbane Metro has many things: a whimsical theme tune. A hefty price tag. A cooler cousin. What it does not have, I’ve personally discovered, is a reliably pleasant, accessible experience. In my younger and more innocent days upon the first rollout of the Metro last year, when I (an ambulatory wheelchair user) still had […]
Continue Reading
Dad pulled up at the front of the drop-off bay. He turned to look at me, expectant. I’m sure he said something like, ‘Good luck! Have fun!’, but it was little use to me. All I could think about was how I might puke at any second. Even something as trivial as moving my hand […]
Continue Reading