it’s a kind of dishonesty that doesn’t announce itself as deception, but hides in crevices between what we feel and what we’re ready to admit. a disguise worn by reflection.

we open our journals believing we are stepping into a private room where performances end, where the mind can undress. it feels intimate, unguarded. yet even there, we arrange our thoughts like stones, stacked in a fragile cairn. because writing the truth is heavier than thinking it.

in our minds, feelings move quickly. but on paper, they become permanent. they become evidence— a body of its own, now existing outside of us. and perhaps, we’re not ready for that kind of permanence. not false, but softer truths, shaped for easier digestion.

sometimes i am afraid to be discovered in there. how strange would it be to admit that i don’t always mean what i write… that i write without knowing what i mean…

we lie to protect ourselves from seeing our own vulnerability. there’s something unsettling about reading your own pain in your own handwriting. it makes the feeling undeniable. it removes the option to dismiss it later as just a bad day, hormonal, or simply dramatic.

ink is a faithful accomplice; once written, the paper becomes a witness— a forgiving one. but truth is heavier than ink. to bleed on paper feels miserable, so we edit ourselves.

we write what sounds reasonable rather than what feels raw; turning survival into victory, loneliness into independence, tears into tiredness. we summarise emotions, dress them in neat handwriting so they look less like fracture and more like an adornment— pretty to look at, not meant to be read. not now. not again.

we skip the pages, afraid that even the dearth of details might unravel us if we linger too long. our journals become so curated, much like the conversations we have with others— filtered, and just more personal.

sometimes, we lie because we don’t yet understand the truth. we write from the place we’re standing, not from where we assume we’ve arrived. today, what feels like clarity might later reveal itself as avoidance. what we describe as indifference might actually be exhaustion, and healing… might still be denial.

the gravity of reality can be so heavy that the mind may not even have the spine to hold itself straight.

so, time has a way of exposing these lies.

you return to an entry months later, and suddenly the page is different. you notice the gaps yawning. the things you avoided. the emotions you minimised. the sentences that sound too composed for someone who was, in reality, falling apart. you see how you tried to make sense of something before you were ready to fully feel it.

and yet, there’s something so tender about these lies. they are not betrayals. they are survival.

we lie in our journals the same way we lie to ourselves— not to deceive, but to cope. to make pain smaller. to make confusion survivable. writing often accepts what the heart has yet to process.

that’s why, some of our truths need time to learn how to breathe.

honesty, after all, is not always instant. it’s complex and layered. it’s the years of circling around the truth before we finally sit inside it, ready to write it as it is.

what are our journals, if not a miniature, patient version of ourselves? it’s inked, it’s drenched, it’s torn— holding our half-truths, altered memories, and cautious confessions. what are they if not versions of ourselves that weren’t ready yet, but were trying. who showed up, not knowing what else to do.

not judging or condemning, just holding.

maybe that’s what makes journaling so human. not perfectly honest, but closer. braver.

so we lie in our journals.

but as long as we keep writing, the truth, like an aroma, quietly finds its way through. and journals become less a record of who we were than a place where each version of ourselves waits for the next to finally face it without looking away.

after all, we rely on our journals, too. :)

somehow, i cage him against the wall. incapable of standing against the orbs swelling me with remorse. his body curled up in defence, i do not intend to hurt him. words, a demure necessity and ours, oscillate like finessed vipers. the tyrant fear governs me. and facing it is less frightful with you beside me, but what if i say you are my fear?

nestling on the crook of his neck, i let a wave of reassurance sweep over him. you see, i'd rather be perished by him than by my own wreckage. i scrape my heart off openly. known by none, i'm known by you. it can't be anyone, if not by you. he eased his posture, resonating my truth. like hands holding water in a desert, he cupped my face as such. tracing its contours with his own. there’s no distance left to defend. hence begins the marathon of pulses storming into one another.

like a nomad found home, we nested against each other. humane and desperate, that's how we were. the space encompassing us, a field of vulnerabilities. our weaknesses come to light only in solitude. the sole beauty in tragedy is its power to endure through eternity. i embrace him, tenacious enough to let his blue warmth spread across me like wildfire and consume my heart by loving him further.

i ache for you so much. it's how we keep confessing to each other by our mere presence. wind chimes in silence. i ache for you too, whimpers stroked on my shoulder.

“The fear of losing someone may perhaps trigger the emergence of desire to reestablish closeness.”

he, who's remarkably built, can yet be pulverised in split seconds. perhaps that's why i regard him no less than a sculpture. if i were a museum to maladies, he's the flourishing Florence. it's the way he makes me want to shield him, never let him shatter. and it's when i hold him, i become aware of the human architecture— bones, flesh, impulse. a cassette of retentive nerves. delicate and nuanced. easy to wound, easy to pleasure. protection is just another face of possession.

it's maddening. fidgety hands striding all over, fighting to leave something divine and indelible; we incise our verses on each other. my hands do not know where to rest, my thoughts do not know where to end. even in the void of light i could read you as if you were an opus of braille. this isn't enough. this proximity is just not enough. i need my skin stitched with his. enlighten his flesh with power and thrills. and leave the air between us choking for itself. i grow greedy over him so bad. it is, maddening.

like moths drawn to mortal flame, bodies instinctively prowl for greater pleasure. it's how this silk love yields beneath mine. yet that brazen dominance of his! tames my possessiveness. i can’t defy. he stands like a cigarette, here to consume and to be consumed. i am no different. burn all the pain away from my lungs with your ashes. and inflame, my unkind hysteria.

“To feel wanted, desired by the one they love is a turn on.”

the naked air defiling morals and discipline, our composures unleashed to haywire. my love, i'm a magnet for the iron in your blood. his locks tangled in my feral tips, my neck threatened by his miscreant grip; we both are the pursued predators tonight. i let out a hiss. the quivering flesh beneath, achieving the form of glorious tanzanite. the degree of dissatisfaction rendered me impolite. the urge to make love felt mightier than any physical pain.

so we crush our curtains one by one. charmed by fireflies of iniquity, an orchid hush. lips feisty as ever, exalted to none but mine. he sways his with mine as such, leaving the requiems all mortified. the lack of constraints and rhythms infesting the room with nightingale groans. initiate. assimilate. reciprocate. do whatever it takes. do not drive this to its end.

i'm fond of his fondness for my deranged self for him. i'm fond of him, being the audience of the spectacle he stages himself. i want him to erupt in contentment each time he beholds me, yes i'm your organic mess. it is the haste to relish each other alive, causing even the deep arteries to waver in famine. intimate and beyond, we're performers of the same disorder.

i'm a carnal fool, wanting to bloom with you in all the areas i’ve rusted. it's the way you flicker like a camera, seizing every dot of me. i recognise that i wouldn't ever cease to exist as long as you remember.

so, remember me.

until you can’t. and when you can’t, let that be the proof that i was real enough to meet an end.

“u love me?” — the billionth time. “love you love you love you.” “there’s no i in it,” he knows i’m baiting him. again. “it melted with you.”

tsk… that sweet-coated tongue, always turning my bullets into tulips. only if he knew—a rose may long to be held, yet cannot tend what it pricks.

the reverie

rain pours, and he pulls me close, mischief running across his face. i look into his succulent eyes, and there arises an irrevocable desire to embrace.

so i meet him with a similar softness his face slowly turns into, each eye a canvas of confession, each glance an exchange of desire, each droplet an answer to his tenderness and my prayers.

the world grows muted in this tension of arms; i hear only my heartbeat racing to meet his. the rain becomes a theatre, our symphony sweet—the dance of hearts in grace. one step into sensuality; fire and water mutually set ablaze.

i realise i’m not standing on the edge of the knife; i stand with it, the blade already slithering in my chest. i give rise to an inferno to incinerate my insides, so there’s more space—more space for him to reside.

“i was happy” — “why?” — “i was happy because you were happy.”

those eyes…his soft brown eyes. deep. altruistic. unforgettable. i saw myself loved, even if only belatedly, every time those sweet jars of honey looked at me.

in howling shadows where silence sways, let the downpour drench us in bliss. let me resurrect, uninterrupted, within this tempest, so i can thrive each time he reclaims me by his lips.

in the heat of his gaze, my chaos reigns; together we burn in a glorious game. a torrent of feelings takes flight, unraveling our seams—a halo wraps around me, a shroud of his name. in this wildfire of yearning, where wind turns gold, i’ve been happy—utterly lost in your flame.

and the last of the tender candles burned out.

the soft suns sank behind the horizon, leaving me only with a remnant sea that glimmered like his, salted with my sweetness—a sea so beautiful, it was better off without a rose.

“i love you, my child. and how can someone stop loving their child.”

he taught me (how not to) love.

“If you love a flower but not its roots, you will be disappointed when autumn comes.”

i was walking home yesterday, watching the snow beneath my feet. what was meant to be white had turned gray, bruised by tires and boots, and pressed down by the weight of passing days. it made me think of content creators who try to show the ‘reality’ of snow for those who’ve never seen it, while snow, in fact, often survives as the idea itself.

you see, i’ve stood beneath snowfalls, even through wind’s anger. i’ve watched my eyes catch the way it shimmers at night, felt the disappointment when it melted instantly, never regretted it despite its cold stab. and yes, i get upset whenever i realise my greed to preserve it with me can’t be satiated. i’ve paid attention to a delicate snowflake pausing on my sleeve before it disappeared. i’ve moved through paths where the only way forward was through piles of snow.

in those moments, snow is exactly as it is imagined—swan-white, pristine, cinematic, almost unreal. the stretch of snow, seemingly perpetual, is nothing short of perfection. a spectacle, no one could ever tire of seeing. the difference between that snow and the kind crushed into streets isn’t time or nature— it’s the proximity to us.

for those who live inside this bustling dome, many call snow dirty. troublesome. ruined. yet does anyone stop to wonder why it ended up that way?

snow does not arrive stained. it arrives empty, willing to be shaped. its disfigurement comes later—from exhaust curling into the air, roads ground into dust, shoes dragging the city across its surface.

snow does not choose what it absorbs. it only keeps record.

the water we pollute is the same snow we defile. so calling snow dirty is easier than admitting what dirtied it. what we see beneath our feet isn’t nature decaying—it is evidence of our presence.

snow is only as clean as the world we place it in.

if you look at snow with kindness, it’s still clean enough to hold the sky. that’s the truth of snow. the rest is the reality of us.

so snow is neither pure nor flawed, it simply exists; cradling the sky in its whiteness, persevering through human weather, and keeping still long enough for us to notice,

if we ever slow down.

my sadness was stuck in the vortex, with no exit. the vortex grew larger, overstretched itself, and gradually turned me into a hollow chamber, full of spirals.

ask me what sadness is; i can no longer describe it. what i feel now is not the sadness i knew, but what remains of it.

i can feel your absence in my head, in my pens, across my pages. it’s all rants—nothing lyrical, nothing resonating.

i’d say it’s still you, but it’s not. you were sacred, not a mess.

i, who ADORED winter, didn’t like it anymore. i’ll tell you how sad that is. i was a winter baby, born in cold and quiet. winter was not something i survived; it was something i belonged to. i loved how the world softened under the snowfall— everything deafening learned to whisper. the longer nights allowed me to stay inside myself.

and then suddenly, winter became a hassle. the cold felt intrusive instead of honest. the silence felt empty instead of safe. i watched winter arrive and felt nothing rise to meet it.

sadness knocked at my door. i opened it, but we didn’t talk. i didn’t know what to say. the awkwardness, the discomfort, the agitation drew curtains on my eyes. i shut the door completely. i ran towards the sun.

that’s insanity, because i hate the sun. i always have. still, i closed the distance between us. inevitably, it charred me.

do you realise how sad it is to be unable to speak to your sadness? and now mine wouldn’t even come out to speak to me. it’s been 2 years. i was its ally, and i abandoned it. i abandoned the one who took care of me since i was 7.

was i trying to sound too perfect? did i suffocate it with precision? was my perfectionism tormenting it? did i use it for extrinsic attention, for appreciation? did its beauty matter more than its soul? did i— invalidate it in the process of my creation?

sadness, my love, i tell you today that i love the winter. more than ever. i was led astray, but i’m back. i love the snow, the shapes it takes on my windows. i love the pain of the cold, which tells me i’m not numb. i can feel. i can feel the warmth in my exhalation— that i’ve enough air in my lungs to create a fog.

i’m here, my love. right at your doorstep. open the door, please.

i don’t wanna cry anymore without your shoulders beside me.

i see an empty soul standing in darkness, her tired orbs piercing into mine. tears all shed, eyes swollen red. in the blink of an eye, i see myself and there’s no one by my side.

loneliness clogs the air like white smoke, making it hard to breathe. today, i hear them again: echoes of taunts and disappointments circling like chants, like cults.

in a world where everyone is different, why am i denied that difference? i feel insentient, a ghost in the white cloth, yet concealed.

questions fracture and repeat relentlessly, bruising the insides of my skull. this world is a coal maze, a blazing mess, and i have been reduced to ash— not held, not even buried beneath the soot, just thinning, disappearing.

i no longer know who i am becoming. only that i am less than i was.

it’s frightening— to fail to recognise the one before me. she withered before the blooming spring, words lying cold on the ground of her voice, my inner self defeated by the tinnitus.

“that’s not me!

that’s not me!

that… can’t be me...”

i’m tired of chasing the remains of myself, if any are left. i am no longer myself. all i wear is a mask of pretence.

on lilac sand,

above an iridescent sea,

eyes closed,

face turned to the endless blue.

my soul laid bare to the warmth of helios,

my mind drifting above the clouds.

a gentle breeze embraces my skin.

this is what i long for—freedom. the kind that heals a barren soul. but this fragile construct is like a house of cards— one touch, and you’re plunged into nothingness.

my eyes glisten as they meet reality, its thorns mauling my existence. bound by metal chains. there are no doors left to escape. i wish i could call this a hallucination, but it’s far too real; it refuses to dissipate.

“why are you doing this to me?”

sorry— i forgot i have no right to speak.

every needle of my life stands here to mock me. the more i protest, the deeper the scars sink; like gripping a knife i cannot release, driving it into places where my breath should be.

“Is this how it’s gonna be?”

i’d beg to differ, but i’m too tired to beg so… this is how it is. and how it will remain. until days die one by one, leading me to my grave.

i exhale— a sigh as heavy as i am, but not strong enough to break the shackles, so i put the mask on.

again.