Be like the afternoon wind that

grazes against my leg,

or the rain that

washes my supple skin.

Be like the first snowfall

of the season

Or a good pair of hiking boots.

But, be easy, my love.

I’m just a child staring into the sun.

Roll like the hills in the distance

,if you must,

and sleep like a lush valley after.

But, be easy, my love.

Even a river must have

a bank to rest upon.

https://open.spotify.com/track/5KADKKJqxxF2d0a9Ir2lK3?si=p9BD29n_QEyPJQfX99DeQw&utm_source=copy-link

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her and him,

that summer in New York,

that summer in Japan.

The friend you left behind and

the one that you forgot.

The night I threw up

in the pub bathroom

(where I learned how to kiss a toilet seat)

until it closed.

And the day after soaping away my embarrassment

and rotten love.

The train to Budapest

with the six-seater cabin and

the roll of film that never developed

properly.

And all those memories that

I can’t see anymore.

Erased by the stinging palm I try to forget.

Sixteen years old

sobbing in the closet,

(the literal closet)

and twenty-one years old

sobbing in the park,

itching days-old mosquito bites.

The night I wished I wasn’t,

and the night I wished it was.

The first almost- love

and the second maybe- something.

I think maybe now

I’m something too?

Fifteen years old, placing flowers by

forgotten graves

and twenty-one years old kissing beside them.

That night at nineteen, stuck next to a pair of hands

I can no longer see, but I can’t forget.

But I wish that night was my grave so that

I didn’t have these imprints.

Graduating in a white dress

again and again

and now for the last time.

Do I have space for something new?

I’m sending my friend a picture of her at six.

Maybe that was when things were good.

Maybe things can be that good again.

Like that day my father drove me

through the empty streets at sunrise.

One of my other poems

“For if we imagine this being of the individual as a longer or smaller room, it is obvious that most people come to know only one corner of their room, one spot near the window.”

The original introduction to this piece stated that “I think that this piece will be of a slightly lower quality than my other pieces, primarily because it concerns the topic of ‘I’.” In my mind, it was difficult to imagine a good piece on identity being written by someone who claims not to know themself. In a strange reversal of Descartes’ “Cogito”— “I think, therefore I am”—I tend to hold a strong distinction between who I am and what I think/ write.

But it always seems that the person who began the paragraph is not the same person who completed it, and while I may walk the streets, there is another version of me that exists purely in graphite.

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I cannot possibly begin to understand how I can feel like an old beige landline slowly accumulating dust, but I do. I don’t know a single word in this land of concrete that can quite capture that emotion, so it feels like I’m being forced to speak a language I wasn’t raised in. But I think that the struggle to know— to find the words, to place the feelings— is at the core of what makes a writer write. After all, the words “Things aren’t all so sayable and tangible as people would have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space no word has ever entered,” feel so familiar to me, and yet Rilke and I are separated by more than just time. The pursuit of self-knowledge, and I guess you could say one unified truth, often makes me feel like I’m stuck in Cuneiform, while everyone else has moved on to the Roman alphabet. In the same way I may never find the perfect words to express what seems to boil within me, I may also never truly see beneath another person’s skin.

Someone whom I actually do not like anymore once asked me if I liked to write, or if I needed to write, and I realise now that they were paraphrasing Rilke, but then again they didn’t seem like the type of person to have original thoughts anyway. And so I have asked myself, as Rilke advised, whether I would have to die if I was forbidden to write, and I see within his letters my answer. They speak to a kind of intimacy between near strangers, and yet I can also see how they address the me that exists between these pages. I know that if I were asked, I would offer the same advice as him, and would gladly tell someone that I am touched by their “beautiful anxiety about life.” I can clearly see the past speaking to the future. Or perhaps it’s the other way around, and as he wrote, he imagined himself a snake staring at his own skin.

The questions of “Am I intelligible? Can you hear me? Have I found the right words?” are perhaps all a writer can live for. If I know that without writing I must die, totally succumbing to feelings of solitude and detachment, then I know that without these questions I would die as well. In pursuit of these questions, the writer cannot help but transform their passive anxiety about life into a work of art, as if the pen were being guided by all those who sought the same answer before them. There is a sense of succumbing to language, as well as to the world around you.1 And yet no answer can ever be reached because as the writer is transformed so are the questions, and there is always another word, feeling, small sentiment, or gesture to be shared in pursuit of some type of knowing. Maybe this is why I think that the writer should never truly know themself, for if he were to, what else would there be left to discuss?

All one can do is live the questions, and look to the birds in the sky, or the wind blowing the trees, for something resembling an answer.

I think back to times in my life where I have tried to divvy myself up into clean sections— the daughter, the friend, the writer, the artist— and even going so far as to assign different names to myself based on what I was doing (yes, I am insane) because there is a part of me that constantly feels that in order to live, I must feel whole. And what better way to be whole than to shrink myself smaller and smaller, as if I had just consumed one of the “EAT ME” cakes from Alice in Wonderland? But I can never be whole so long as there is a version of me that lives and experiences, and a version of me that cuts it up, transforms and interprets it—for how could I be excluded from that process?

I will never reach this unified truth I have looked for all my life, but I think I slowly found more than that. I have these words and these questions that give me, who lives in this very singular moment, though she may not live beyond it, some type of comfort in a world we cannot begin to understand. I guess my own ignorance is what preserves me, and while I find all these dark hallways I have yet to search nerve-wracking, I cannot imagine what else I would do with myself, or what I would do if I found nothing at the end.

You are the sweetest yet most acerbic thing that has ever touched my lips. I was raised to believe that physical things could never satisfy my soul, and now I know that could not be further from the truth. I never learned how to love within sin, or how to kneel before anything other than an altar, but god I am willing to learn.

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I want with my whole heart to exclude the divine from this love; I want to forget about Nietzsche, Camus and St Augustine for a little while. I do not want to worship something which has never demanded my devotion, but in front of you I cannot help but feel tainted and in need of washing. I don’t know how to write about your hands, or your cartilage, or your veins. No, that feels far too human. I have never been able to think about fingers or ears without shame grazing against the tip of my tongue or resting on top of my rosy cheeks.

I’m still trying to tell myself it’s okay to want your flesh. It’s a type of honesty in saying that out loud that I have never been familiar with. Look at how I write: I confuse feelings with philosophy and the body with communion. I’m stuck speaking in this dead language, and I don’t know how to say: look at me. It’s there, and it’s always been there, but those words are trapped in the world of the literary for some reason. It’s like you’ve thrown me down the rabbit hole where left is right and love is a type of sacrifice.

I envy the flesh— don’t you know that phrase? It walks the line between reverence and denigration so easily. Yes, I envy your sick, mortal flesh, and I can’t stop.

But enough with the flowery prose; it’s all just another attempt to avoid your gaze. Let me say something forthright for once, no matter how much these keys burn my fingertips as I type. I hate your arms and your legs. I can’t even write poetry about you because it would require cutting you open on an operating table and pulling your organs out one by one. How could I dare to touch your heart with my bare, rigged hands? Can you tell that shame is on the tip of my tongue again? I know I said I’ve never known how to love within sin, but clearly I see myself as a sinner; as dirty and unworthy.

I envy the flesh.

I can’t bring myself to say it any other way.

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It all began as I arrived outside the halls of St. Regulus, the isolated university off the tip of Scotland. The cold was not unfamiliar to me, but the long journey on the ferry was. There was only one boat that went between the tip of the mainland and the Isle of Fern, a slow steamboat that just about managed to cross the icy sea in the best of weather. On days when it dipped below average, the island was cut off from the world due to one too many boats drowning beneath the depths of towering waves. In the past, this led to famines on the island during the winter months when the sea was uncrossable; nowadays it simply leads to cabin fever as one stares at the rocky cliffs wondering if they would survive the fall. Most people know it as fact that the giants that built the earth forgot The Isle of Fern, leaving it disconnected from the rest of the world.

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The warmth of September had warmed the seas when I first made my journey along with my peers. All of us had achieved what many considered largely impossible; we had gotten into this secretive university without being dissuaded by the gruelling application process. Essay upon essay, interview upon interview, we had impressed the professors with things they considered to be innovative. Finally, at the point where they expect you to break, they reveal the verdict. Those who get in believe that the pain they have suffered means it’s worth it, and those who do not believe that it was all in vain. In the end, pain is pain, and both types should get used to the feeling of a rejection that burns into your soul.

Or rather, that was some of us. For most of the students on the steamboat to The Isle of Fern, a level of disbelief could be seen in their eyes as the edges of the island peeked over the white caps. Its existence was a testament to the fact that their pain did have meaning, that this opportunity was the gift bestowed upon them at the expense of mental anguish. For the others on the boat, excluding the two or three sheep farmers, they were part of a long line of legacies. Despite being regarded as the best school in the country, St. Regulus was known for favouring those with particular last names or perhaps a particular number of zeroes in your bank account.

A part of me vaguely remembers seeing Julian Laurent on that first boat trip, standing upon the top deck unafraid of the rocking beneath him. He had no doubt made the journey several times, as from the time he was born, his acceptance letter was already written. His father and his grandfather had both attended St. Regulus and made charitable donations to ensure that their name became etched into the school’s history. This was not only metaphorical, as the library in which I did most of my research plotting his downfall was most commonly known as the Laurent library, due to its obvious benefactors. Unlike the general population, they did not have to be prodded until they almost broke but rather enjoyed a sense of security that I had never before felt in my life. Even in that moment, without even knowing his name, I could tell whether he was one of them or one of us. His stance as he leant over the railings exuded unjustified confidence as if he was a king returning to his kingdom after a conquest. Except, this king was not the rightful heir to the throne.

While I remember that moment and the realisation that life at this school would never be fair because of people like them, he did not become significant in my life until almost a month later, when I happened to hear the thumping against the wall in my room. That first journey was memorable not because of the small moments of sadness but because of the awe I felt as I truly saw St. Regulus with my own eyes. The cathedral sat at the very top of the highest hill; parts of it were undergoing construction, but its left side was perfectly visible, and you could see the perfect stained glass windows and Gothic columns. They had not been altered since the day they were first placed, and its history was visible in every crack and piece of moss that grew.

Yet, it is the sounds of the bells that I will never forget. They were the most constant thing in my life there; even when those I trusted abandoned me, I could rely on the bells to begin ringing at 6 A.M and have their last chime at midnight.

The school itself was split around the island; it had once been a stronghold of a king, a place to retreat to when his entire kingdom burned, and the end seemed to be nearing. He could sit at the top of the tower of what was now the great hall where balls were held and watch the flames rise as he stayed safe. It seemed that the old walls continued to serve the purpose of protecting those who were fine with watching the rest of the world fall as long as they were safe. But why were we here then? Those of us who had nothing in life compared to them? When you have little, you want everything. Even as cynicism was occupying half of our minds, we knew we had to exist within the system to have a chance, the slightest opportunity, to succeed in life. But even then we knew we could never be them.

On the second highest peak was the dormitory I would call my home for the next four years, most commonly known as Ivy Hall due to the green tint that covered the stone wall and the ivy that grew along the front, surrounding the large doors that lead you inside. I had no help lugging my two suitcases up the hill to the hall, nor did anyone else. It possibly served as your first lesson about this school: no one would help you, it was your decision whether you lived or drowned—one of the most haunting things about Ivy Hall was that it stood right on a slowly disintegrating headland. I was lucky enough to live in a room that looked down onto the white cliffside. Every day when I woke up, I questioned whether the walls would collapse and I would fall in due to the rolling waves that wore away at the foundation, or if I would be the first person to find the body of the person who couldn’t take it any longer, floating along like a branch of a tree. I later found out that among certain circles they placed bets on who it would be, as it seemed like someone jumping off the cliffside was a staple of ringing in the new academic year at Ivy Hall.

I climbed the steps to the front door, a bag in each hand, and the smiling face of Phoebe De la Roche greeted me. She was in her third year and studying literature (a specific emphasis on French literature because the French are nothing if not arrogant), and she had a smile plastered across her face. She seemed happy enough.

“Welcome to Ivy Hall!” Her accent had a thick American twang, no doubt from attending an international school her entire life. “Could I please have your full name so I can tell you where your room is?”

“Lilliane O’Conner”, I spoke quietly, my voice always irritated me.

“That’s such a beautiful name! Do people ever call you Lily?” She beamed, but I felt as though she was feigning interest. People tend to be too polite and act as if they care about the people they’re meeting.

“Not really.” Her smile fell slightly at my small response, unwilling to play into her game.

“Right. Well, your room is 34, which is just down the corridor to the left. The heating gets a bit too hot sometimes, so you might want to adjust it a little bit. Also, I hope you don’t mind the noise because you’re right next to a common room.” Her smile wavered as she spoke these words, and at the time I was glad. I had assumed I shattered her false exterior.

She handed me a bracelet, and at first I was unsure of what to do with it. “What is this?”

She giggled slightly before holding up her wrist with a similar grey band on it, “This is your key to all the buildings. It’s personalised based on your room so only you can get in. It also tracks your heart rate and location, so don’t stand too close to the edges of the island because it starts to ring really loudly because it thinks… well, you know.”

That’s so sweet. So the overlords do care.

I mumbled a ‘thank you’ as I turned to walk down the long corridor that my room was on. Several other students were moving into their rooms; boxes lined the walls, and sure enough, my room was right at the end with only one other door marking the end of the hallway. Next to my door was the little scanner, which I cautiously lifted my hand, now secured with the bracelet, to. It made a slight clicking noise, and I pushed the door open. The last bits of light cascaded through the large windows. There was a twin bed on one side of the room and an old desk on the other side. Despite the dust that settled in the air, it was perfect. It was mine.

The other door was clearly the common room, but it had a scanner next to it as well. I lifted my hand and expected a clicking noise, but nothing happened. I moved the door handle around and still nothing. What’s the point of a common room you can’t enter?

“You can’t go in there.” A stern voice spoke behind me. I turned around to see a raven-haired girl standing at the doorway to the room next to mine.

“I’m sorry?” I replied. I had heard what she said, but her dark eyes indicated that there was something else.

“You can’t go in there. It’s boys only.” She stepped out of her room and approached me. “I’m Sylvia.”

“Boys only?”

“Are you deaf? It seems like you can’t hear what I’m saying.” She leant against the wall, her afro cushioning her head.

“No I’m not.” I replied, shocked by how upfront she was. “It’s just odd to have an all-boys common room.”

“Maybe somewhere else. But not here. Sometimes it feels like the twenty- first century hasn’t arrived yet. The easiest way to survive here is to be rich, white and a boy. Trust me when I say that when you’re not any of those things it’s best to just mind your own business.”

I was shocked. I didn’t expect her to just say it so bluntly, but she was clearly right. When I didn’t say anything in reply, she made her closing remarks, “But that’s just my opinion.”

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I had finished unpacking my bags about ten minutes before it was time for my first supper at Ivy Hall. My red duvet neatly covered my bed, and I had kept the dead plants that were littering the windowsill. I imagined that the last person who lived here had bought them as motivation to wake up in the morning, but one day they just couldn’t take it anymore. They had thrown open the large, green, stained-glass window and ended it all. No one bothered to take care of the plants after that, no matter how important they were to the ghost that now inhabited the room.

As I opened the door, Sylvia’s stoic face greeted me, “I’m your parent for this week.”

I didn’t want to ask her to repeat herself, considering what she had asked me last time I did. Yet, my facial expression gave away my confusion. “I take care of you. Ask you how your day has been and guide you. Right now, I will take you to dinner so you don’t have to sit by yourself.”

I mumbled a thank you, but Sylvia didn’t seem to mind my silence. She was more than happy to explain everything without me even asking. She was a Londoner, born and raised and had gotten into the school on a scholarship; as it turned out, a lot of people had. Her dream was to work on spaceships and rockets, but she claimed that she would “probably end up on crack or working in a petrol station somewhere.” Her pessimism seemed to define her, and it made sense considering how hard it is to stay optimistic in a world that constantly tries to bury you.

“You don’t have to eat in this hall, but they want you to,” She spoke again as she pushed open a large door. “I’ll be honest, there isn’t really anywhere else to eat, unless you like to cook. The food here isn’t that great either, so it’s really a lose-lose situation.”

Despite everything about this place seeming horrible and dreary so far, the one thing you couldn’t ignore or pretend was bad was the architecture. I always wanted a school that made me feel like I was living in a piece of history, and St. Regulus certainly accomplished that. Even though the dining hall was filled with metal tables and the walls were lined with food stations, the beautiful dark wood shone through it all. The floor and walls were the same colour, and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had polished them before we walked in, as the more I went into that room, the more dull they looked. The ceiling never looked dull, though; it remained a piece of art all year round. It truly looked as if one of the great Renaissance artists had painted it, and it wouldn’t be all that surprising if one of them had.

That artistry was stained by the less-than-classy individuals beneath it, who in the dead of night used the walls to put out their cigarettes. Truly, I never believed that cliques existed outside of bad American movies, but once more I was proved wrong. As I sat down opposite Sylvia, the room seemed to be segregated as on one side you could hear overly loud laughter, and on the side we were on, it was deathly quiet.

“Ignore the silence. It’s always like this.” Sylvia shovelled mashed potato into her mouth. “Nobody wants to draw attention to themselves.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, so you can speak. I thought you were mute; it was the only reason I spoke this much.” She paused a second, as if waiting for laughter. “Whatever, even though like three-quarters of this school are ‘normal people’, that one third that isn’t is insanely weird. Just don’t get involved with them.”

“Is it just Ivy Hall that’s like this?” I thought I could escape it.

“Mainly. It’s the oldest part of the school, so of course they all think it’s prestigious. They’re all over though, like those spiders who give birth to like a million babies. You can’t escape them.”

I didn’t like how she phrased that.

Once more, Julian Laurent caught my eye as if he was a recurring nightmare that I couldn’t escape. Sure enough, he sat amongst the sea of Chanel bags and designer clothes, attempting to show himself off to the rest of the world. He was a first-year like me, but he seemed to fit in just fine, no need for a parent to show him around. He sat right in the middle of all of them; his demeanour was calm but confident; you could see it in the way he leaned back against the chair, slightly tipping it off the floor while he cracked his knuckles with one hand.

This was where I first witnessed the other two demons in his hellish triumvirate. To the left of him was a taller man with the darkest, hooded eyes one had ever seen. Michael Roan. A true representative of the American dream: a second-year studying business, known for bragging about how underpaid the people who worked at his family’s hotel chain were and despite being half black, he was probably more aligned with the fascist movement than the people whose families actually fought alongside Mussolini or Franco. He was the type of person to put kittens in a bag and throw them in a river to drown if they annoyed him. I felt a desire to look at him as he leaned against a pool table in the corner of the room. His untucked shirt and messy hair made it seem like he didn’t care, but there was a crazed energy surrounding him that even I could feel, which told me his laid-back appearance wasn’t all it seemed.

Right next to him, someone was positioning his stick to the right place, the smack of the billiard ball against another and a small scoff told me he had succeeded in what he’d done. Dorian Boyd. At first glance, one couldn’t tell he was the worst of them all: his fluffy, almost reddish-brown hair and doe eyes seemed more peaceful than his compatriots. I wish I knew then what I know now. He seemed the most put together and rarely spoke, instead peacefully looking around the room. He was also known for enjoying time to himself. The following day, I would see him strolling across the grassy plains when it seemed like just he and I were awake. It made sense considering he had grown up on a large estate in the English countryside, the typical old-money lifestyle. I locked eyes with his rich, chocolatey ones for a second and feared that he would use it against me, as Sylvia had said. Instead, he gave a small smile.

“Who’s that?” I asked Sylvia.

She looked up from playing with her grey mashed potatoes; her stoic expression broke for a second, and there was a twitch of worry. “You don’t need to know. He’s not a good guy, so don’t even think about it.”

“I was just asking. He can’t be that bad.” I sheepishly replied.

“Did you ignore everything I told you earlier? There is a line in this school.” She pretended to draw a line on the table with her hands. “As long as you stick to our side, you will be fine. They do disgusting shit. Things I don’t even want to repeat, and if you even witness it, best believe your life is ruined.”

I understood her; I knew very well what she was talking about. I had grown up mixing with that type of person since I was born, the type to get an Audi as their first car while someone begged outside their house. I thought they weren’t all horrible; they just didn’t bother themselves with the things that didn’t affect them. As long as the world was blind to them, they could be blind to the rest of the world. I agreed to be different, though. I knew I was different. I am different.

At that moment it didn’t matter, though. I was drawn in by those eyes. I thought, deep down, maybe there was something different. It was stupid. That stupid feminine urge to change a man and think he could be something more than what he was born to be. With one single look, I hoped that it would happen, but that hope didn’t last more than a month. A month of watching silently from the window of the library on the second floor, hoping that he was walking to avoid the company he was forced to be with.

Stupid.

I could see Sylvia’s face at that moment. She was barely even my friend then, but the moment she saw my interest peak, the playful prodding at her mashed potatoes stopped.

Check out my non fiction….

and my poetry!

This is a small non- fiction piece because I kind of just feel like sharing some of my thoughts right now! I’ll probably end up making this a paid piece in about a week, so read it while you can!

Also, as I finished writing this piece, I saw this quote which I thought was so cute and fitting!

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.” Henry Miller.

I like to think that this piece is about giving a little bit of love to a blade of grass <3

I’ve been debating whether to write about this for about a week now, purely because I think some moments in life are almost too soft to write about. Sometimes writing down an event almost solidifies it, when it should, in actuality, remain temporary. Moments like the one I’m about to describe seem like stories you should tell your lover late at night when you’re tangled beneath the sheets, and there’s only a sliver of moonlight streaming through a small window. It’s the type of story you want to keep close to your heart.

My life has recently been in a total state of flux. Things started to change around two months ago when I had a strange, almost religious, experience. This was followed by some impromptu solo travelling across Kosovo and essentially a total revamp of my life. At the end of it all I’ve decided to ditch the somewhat prestigious masters degree I was supposed to do and go live in North Africa for a bit.1 It’s safe to say that things have been very shitty, very frequently, but also entirely fulfilling. In the last non-fiction piece I wrote, I described the importance of hardship and change, and everything up until this moment has only confirmed that. My life has, at points, been absolutely hellish, but I am so glad that it has been this way.

But I don’t actually want to talk about the specifics of my life.

A couple of days ago I was on a very long-haul flight across the Atlantic, squished into a middle seat with my knees practically touching my chest. At a certain point (when you run out of movies to watch), you often have no choice but to indulge in melancholic fantasy making. It is an addicting practice because there is nothing better than thinking about something sad that hasn’t actually happened to you— just ask Aristotle, he described the experience of Catharsis as the primary reason why people enjoy watching Greek Tragic Dramas. Your senses become overwhelmed by the confusing prick of sadness, but this acts as a release of all the negative energy that’s been sitting inside you. Even though it feels like torture, people put themselves through it again and again, as at the end you are also met with an intense feeling of relief. Plus, it seems only natural for a writer to want to invent their own tragedy.

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The result of this little indulgence was that I, and I admit this with shame, somewhat ignored the elderly man who was sitting next to me. While I wasn’t rude and helped him when he needed it, I did put my headphones back on almost as soon as he was done speaking. But things changed quite drastically when I asked him why he was travelling.

“Well, I had a girlfriend living in [country name]; we were together for 35 years. She died yesterday, and I’m going to her funeral.”

The sentence hit me like a truck, not only because of the way his voice wavered as he said it, but also because I remember travelling home for my own father’s funeral, and the brutal process of unpacking grief alone. The longer we spoke, the more I was overcome by adoration for this old man. We never asked for one another’s names— as it often goes in this type of interaction—and I’m sure I’ll never see him again, but that also added to the intimacy of the conversation. There was no fear that knowledge about my life would change his perception of me, as I would always remain simply another stranger who sat beside him on a plane.

What has really stuck with me, though, was the fact that he was letting tears silently drizzle down his face as we spoke. It occurred to me that I had never seen a stranger cry before. We would know each other for less than a day, and still I knew that in that moment, listening to his stories of travelling with his girlfriend, and asking where his children studied was more than just simple conversation. But perhaps the conversation ended up helping me more than it helped him.

There’s a common fantasy of temporarily falling in love with someone (a-la Before Sunrise) and then moving on from that moment, almost scarred by the interaction, in the same way the bark of a tree is scarred by a name carved into it. For me, this was definitely that moment. I fell in love with this old man’s ability to move through such a distressing period of time with grace and happiness, all while carrying bittersweet memories along with him in a soft embrace.

I’ve been learning a lot about love recently—because I adore the concept of it, but I cannot say I’m very good at it— and I’ve realised that it is so important to love absolutely everyone who touches your life. I love this man’s grace, and I allow him to go forward with that knowledge. I love my best friends, and so I will tell them every day, because life is so fulfilling when you learn to love certain things without worshipping them. Trust me, I know how to worship, but I’ve only recently learned how to caress someone in a tender hug. Or how to give someone my love as a gift, and let them leave with it without weeping.

As we got off the plane, I hugged him. Now I barely even remember the details of his face, but I do have that distinct visual of a single tear appearing in the corner of his eye. I think that just like indulging in temporary tragedy, indulging in evanescent love can be as cathartic. I left with a sense of relief, because now I know how easy it is to love a complete stranger. And that knowledge sits inside me without even a droplet of fear. More than that, I realised just how content I am with my natural predisposition towards love. It has always been a part of me that I’ve hidden, mainly because admitting that you’re a romantic has almost become synonymous with admitting to being childish, but everything over the past two months has confirmed that I don’t want to hide it anymore. I would like to allow myself to love this world and the people in it.

I don’t remember what I was thinking about at all. I’m sure it was the same depressing fantasy I’ve had since I was thirteen. But I know that I will remember this conversation for the rest of my life.

There is a weight on my chest 
sinking me further down 
into an explosion of rubble
or a spiral of stairs 
leading me down 
into a dark room 
or a chest of treasures 
filled with porcelain dolls—
and maybe I see hope at the bottom?

Or is it a pair of butterfly wings,
clipped from the 
branches of a ripening 
peach tree?

But this fruit isn't native to
where I grew up, 
so I'm not as familiar with the 
taste of it 
as I am with salt pressed against 
my wounds,
or antiseptic sprayed on 
my tongue. 

But I think that god has picked 
a fruit from that tree. 
He cries like a weeping 
lightning strike.
He asks me for forgiveness. 

What can I do with this unfamiliar 
pair of mourning doves placed on
my palm? 
Whispering like the wind that 
it's okay. 

I don't know this orchard. 
I am not its farmer. 
I cannot anoint the seeds of this field. 

i listening to this song while writing this. SO TRAUMATISING but so good…

"How could I miss these 
morning heron calls and 
nighttime fox cries? 
These dazed summer days and 
docile winter evenings?"

"I'm going back to House,"
we used to say. 
House with a capital H. 
So everything just became
this House, 
that House-- 
the House with the 
room in the attic,
the House with the 
bedroom in the living room. 

And so I've become 
hunched over like a crescent moon 
slowly rolling inwards, 
looking for anything but 
House with a Capital H, 
chipping away at my own stone.

So now I've got 
red, blue and yellow craters 
on the surface of my skin; 
some covered in the taste of saliva. 
Some covered in the smell of a 
much- adored carpet. 

But those dents are so quickly eclipsed by 
"But how could I miss these
warm playful hugs and
late night coffees? 
These crisp autumn leaves and 
soft duvet sheets?"

Each late night whisper and
every midday prayer 
just becomes another dent
on the surface of a distant moon. 

The man in Plato's cave who never looks past the shadows
The story of staring at a page 
The artist starving themselves of paint 
All the things I should say that get stuck in my throat 
The case of staring at the mirror repeating the same phrase
over and 
over.

The fox hiding in his den is
knocking against the 
cage of my teeth.
So I wrap him up in a couple more layers. 

The alcoholic chasing his drink with another
Me chasing my drink with another 
Me wanting to see stars with another.

Then my drink,
and my words
and all that ambition 
are crashing against my 
teeth at the same time.

So now I have to kiss that (damn) almost porcelain toilet seat. 
It's cold and willing, 
almost as if it wants me. 
Maybe it thinks my lips are soft, 
though I imagine they're a bit chapped. 

And it's almost like the stars started dancing 
or the wave finally finished crashing
and the words are in the toilet 
beside the fox
and the cowardly lion 
and the boy who cried wolf. 

I'm sure I could reach my hand into eternity 
into nonsense 
into the greyhound chasing 
the willow tree wishing 
and something holding out 
its hand.

And right at the bottom
there may be 
a corner carved out
for me as well. 

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But then again, I know the feeling of standing on foreign soil and being surrounded by unfamiliar phrases and strange habits. I, too, learned to dance and change shape to fit the needs of others, and at night I still dream of my distant home that I know less of every day. The feeling of the hot sun above still stings my skin, but I’m beginning to forget the sound of early morning and what time the birds wake up. I even see myself in the distant figure of Odysseus, sailing within reach of Ithaca, only to be blown away again.

Never mind, maybe I shall write a story about that very wind that connects us all. I could conjure a tale about the north wind, who constantly blows and yet only grazes against things for a second. He dances over the plains of America and through herds of animals before moving onto the forest of Europe, playing briefly with the ancient souls of its valleys. He can only blow one small gust to say goodbye, like placing a gentle butterfly kiss against the earth. When he weeps from the feeling of loss, a gentle mist covers the orange morning sky, and juvenile deer walk carefully through it, cautious of who might be watching them, obscured. When he smiles with joy, children fly kites for him to run his fingers through, sending light puffs to make the colourful paper soar back and forth through the air.

But I have placed a gentle kiss against a beloved land and not looked back at whatever stain it left. I have travelled across continents, hoping to make my home in distant fields and sleep beside the mice that slumber in holes below. I’ve blown a gale in the face of those I’ve despised and transformed into a hurricane at a moment’s notice. Most importantly, I’ve stared out the window at those grand oak trees and longed to be another leaf on their branches, so that at least when I fall I may rest among friends, just as I’m sure the wind would like to rest one day beside all the friends that he’s kept cool throughout the years.

So maybe I should write about the stars. But now I’m remembering how Nietzsche said that chaos can make them dance, and I so often feel like a black hole that’s about to burst. How I would love to prance across the night sky and hold my eternal lover close, moving so fast that people make a wish against my glow. I can’t write about the wild parrots, either, because my first memory is of learning to imitate their song. Nor can I write about the distant sound of violins because I know what it’s like to polish my heartstrings with resin to make a sweeter sound.

So it seems that everywhere I look, I can only see my own reflection, as if I was born from this earth like the first men of Thebes. I know that even my laugh sounds the same as the wispy echo inside a seashell, and that my hair could have been made out of the ivy growing against my walls. After everything, I realise I’ve travelled across the world looking for art without ever stopping to admire the birthmark on the back of my leg, infused with raspberries and rubies and made with the same intricacy as the fossils beneath the soil.

As you stare at my corpse, maybe you imagine us in another lifetime. Hands grazing against the same book, eyes ensnared by the look of love. Young, cherub-like faces heating up, naive to the weight of want, the feeling of loss still foreign. Would you notice my shy shoulders hunched over in embarrassment and feel the need to place a gentle hand over them? It could have all started with a simple brush of fingertips, and that soft, tentative feeling could’ve preserved us. Am I there in that library, or on that beach, or sitting beside you with my hand in your hair? Or am I here, just a figure in the distance, growing stiffer by the minute?

My lover, do you hope you win this race? Do you hope this love kills me first? I know I could hold you until your body turns cold, and long to feel your pulse flutter beneath your skin. Even now, I imagine how you would take all the colour from this world— I know that the sun would set for the last time with you. I would never again know something as warm as your embrace.

Could you memorise the rhythm of my heart and hear it in every love song, in turn? Would you know how to pour me back into the world?

My lover, why can’t you imagine me dead? Do you not see me as something that could linger beyond it?

My recent love of all things inconvenient, dirty and annoying began on a Montenegrin hillside just outside of Kotor. The evening sun cast shadows across the window of our rented car as we stood in standstill traffic, the mountain squishing the left side of our car while a view over Kotor’s lake graced our right side. The EU had decided to host a Western Balkans summit in Tivat, and to protect all of the “important” leaders in attendance, they blocked every possible road that would allow you to get to it. The result was a total blockade on movement for every tourist and Montenegrin alike.

To pass the time, we smoked cigarettes out the window of the car and gulped down a very warm bottle of wine that had been baking in the backseat all day. When said wine passed through to my bladder, I ducked behind a very thin piece of metal to pee, my friend standing within earshot. During this process, I got a leg cramp and almost fell back into my pee. And I was pretty sure almost every other person on the mountain saw.

In a state of almost pure desperation, we abandoned our car and hiked up the steep road, passing by other cars with slumbering drivers within them. We had hoped to reach the checkpoint and inquire as to when the roads would reopen—as it was now close to midnight—but instead we encountered a group of very drunk Norwegian tourists. They told us they had been watching the cable cars on the mountain and were sure that since all the lights had now turned off, we would soon be allowed to pass. As we left them behind, we mumbled to ourselves about their lunacy and resigned ourselves to spending the night in our car like everyone else.

As my eyes began to flutter shut, the mountain erupted with cheers and the sound of horns. The Norwegians had been right.

The experience was humbling, exhausting, delirium-inducing, and an all-around pain in the ass. But it was also the only road trip I’ve ever been on that I can truly remember with near-total clarity. As we sped down the road, desperate to get home before the sun rose, my friend’s bizarre Central Asian disco blaring over our speakers, I remember feeling a sense of profound joy wash over me.

Over time, I’ve begun comparing this experience to the two summers I spent in Korea.1 While I was initially fascinated by the cleanliness and efficiency of Seoul city life, I was soon disturbed by the physical representation of what I took to be sterility and passivity. Because everything functioned on time, you never had to think about anything. Life was easy, but in the same way spending the night in a hospital is easy: you’re taken care of and clean, but a sense of liveliness is absent.

It’s made me realise that order and convenience are the great opium of the twenty-first century. After writing a stringent defence of graffiti as a political art form for my undergraduate dissertation, I’ve decided to embrace all things messy, difficult and wrong— and what’s more wrong than making a mistake? To struggle and fight for something good, even after everything has gone totally wrong, is the most impassioned feeling you can experience, and nearly absent from modern life. I cannot imagine what a tragedy it would be to live the perfect life and never have to feel the true weight of a decision resting on your back.

Mistakes suddenly place agency above peace. It reconnects you to your environment; it prompts you to speak to people, to ask, to learn. It makes you go to places you’ve never seen before, and maybe break down on the side of the road because you’re exhausted, but then when you get back up, it feels like you’ve just summited Mount Everest. Finally, you are placed back in direct connection to the world around you, experiencing Being with a capital B to get a bit Heideggerian.

The explanation for this feeling is pretty simple: the mark of a good robot is its inability to make a mistake, whereas the mark of a great human is the ability to overcome one. A certain amount of struggle always brings you closer to the root of life— maybe you scraped your knees, but at least you can feel the grass and the dirt beneath you.

So yesterday I decided to take a trip to the English countryside. Unfortunately for me, the English transport system cannot withstand even an ounce of heat, and so the tracks caught on fire.

But despite the two and a half hour delay that totally ruined my plans for the day, I was totally thrilled to find a pair of umbrellas left on the side of the station. I used one to shield myself from the sun as we all waited on the platform, an attempt to escape the train car that was getting hotter by the minute. It was perhaps the best thing that happened that day.

Oh, and my tickets were totally refunded because of the delay. That was pretty good too. I’m pretty sure all of human existence is one giant, cosmic mistake, so why not embrace the beauty of that chaos every day?

I think I still remember how you used to put me to sleep. You sang no songs but detailed bits of history to me. You told me to remember the past, but oh, how I wish I didn’t.

Did you carry me on your shoulders or in your arms?

Did you cut my food into pieces?

Father, I’m so tired of pouring my grief onto this page. I would much rather stain someone’s shirt and yet there are no volunteers.

Father, anyone, lay to me down to rest. Watch over me while I sleep. Tell me something to ease my nerves. Tell me another story from the past.

Do you remember driving me through the streets, the sun barely risen over the distant mountains? It seems like you can’t and so I carry the weight of this memory alone. I wonder if it weighs the same as your coffin.

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The Beginning: What am I doing in Kosovo?

1. I must first credit the talented , who posted amazing pictures of Kosovo a couple of months ago, and definitely sparked my initial interest in the country.

2. When things go wrong, it seems only natural to retreat. And things h…

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Since becoming a newly wed, Bill was preoccupied with crafting the most beautiful gifts for his love at home. Delicate wooden combs and bowls littered his workplace, and children frequently dug through his garbage because even his mistakes could be regarded as the most awe inspiring creations on the island. There were only two projects which Bill never seemed truly content with. The first was the crib that he had designed on the leftover fabric from his wife’s wedding dress. He hung the silk up over one of his windows and every day he whittled away at a piece of wood, quietly remarking that it was nothing like the drawing he had made. Bill knew that without a proper crib his new family would remain childless, and while he anguished at the sight of his wife’s sadness, he would never place his child in anything less than perfect.

The other project that he could never bear to complete was his own coffin. As a child Bill’s father had died in the street and because they didn’t have the money for a coffin, they allowed his body to be consumed by the soil below and soon after a tree sprung from it. The tree seemed to watch over Bill for most of his adolescent life, with a persistent scowl scratched into the wood. He imagined that it was his father expressing his continued disappointment in him: “as the man of the house you let me be reincarnated into a tree? Imagine if I had been buried properly, maybe my soul could have escaped this godforsaken earth and I could have rested properly.”

One day, Bill could have sworn that the sap leaking from the tree was a sign of his father’s profound sadness and he couldn’t stand the sight of it anymore. In the middle of the night he cut the tree down and turned it into one hundred wooden spoons. On the same night he began to craft his own coffin, swearing to himself that he would never let his own soul be trapped on this earth.

One particularly sweltering day, in which workers from across town gathered under Bill’s shade, sipping beers and chattering away, a lone elderly woman stepped through the masses.

She was dressed from head to toe in her Sunday best: a knee-length white dress with a black collar and three golden buttons. Her hands were covered in pristine white gloves, and under her arm, she clutched a brown paper bag close to her. Slowly, she parted the crowd like the Red Sea and approached Bill, who was varnishing an old rocking chair. With kind, tired eyes and cracked lips, she whispered, “I heard you have the hand of God?”

Tentatively, Bill approached the woman and asked what she needed repaired, not bothering to dispell rumours of his Midas Touch.

The unnamed woman presented him with a small wooden music box. As she cranked the handle it began to play a melody that initially sounded like the twinkling of distant stars on a deep night, before eventually descending into a chaotic mess, reminscent of a cat scratching against your skin.

She pet the top of the box softly as it finished playing, “it was a wedding present from my late husband. Now its all I have left of him. Nobody knows why it starts to scratch— but everyone someone cannot fix it they say to me ‘go to Bill with the Navy awning, he’ll know what to do.’”

Bill was still a young man at this point, with only a little bit of curly hair deigning to grow on his chin. Meekly he replied, “I’m sorry ma’am but I’m just a carpenter, and I’ve never fixed a music box before.”

She pleaded with him, “Please. It is the last remnant of my husband.”

He thought of his love at home, and the way she sang as she cut fruit in the morning.

Soon after the box was placed among Bill’s other projects, and the woman was told to come back next week.

William stepped out of the comfort of his plush high-rise office and onto the hot street. Pulling out his pack of cigarettes, he offered one to Bill, who was sitting on the floor beside him. Despite his greying and frail appearance, Bill took in the heat without complaint, and even became imbued with a type of youth that usually escaped him.

He passed Bill a cigarette, and Bill, in return, offered him his lighter. The ritualistic exchange had become characteristic of their interactions, to the point where William ceased to question it. It had been a long time since he questioned why he enjoyed spending time with a vagrant: as he looked at Bill’s wrinkled face, he knew that it reminded him of the faces of every one of his uncles. Memories of sitting on their laps as they bounced their legs up and down would flash through his mind with every puff.

“I’m going to propose to my girlfriend soon,” William started.

“Finally found the one?” Bill croaked out.

“Well, I just feel like it’s time.” Ash fell to the floor. “My father was already married by my age.”

Bill laughed, “And my father was dead by my age. Should I drop to the floor now?”

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say goodbye to counting every freckle peppered against someone's skin.

say goodbye to contact- without- contact.

say goodbye to the soft gums of youth. To tiny rough teeth nurtured by milk.

say goodbye to "what if?" and "almost". Let it all go like one final wish upon a star.

tuck all your memories into your pocket like a lucky coin. Kiss it one final time just in case you lose it. Kiss it the way your mother kissed your forehead. Don’t forget your love but let it go anyway.

say goodbye to the lightning and the thunder.

say goodbye to the leaves that trickle down the drain.

watch as clouds clear and all is forgotten.

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Her life had slowly become defined by the men in it. First, there was David, a banker and extreme germophobe who made Veronica disinfect herself before they touched. His skin stretched around his bone structure with a rubber-like quality from all the UV light that he exposed himself to, convinced it would kill all the bacteria clinging to him. For months, her life revolved around cleaning, buying more cleaning equipment, and obsessing over the dirt beneath her nails. That was the one thing David hated more than anything— dirt under the nails. So, every morning, Veronica learned to get up an hour earlier so she could cut, buff and preen herself to perfection. Somehow, he always managed to find a speck of dust out of place, anyway. David eventually broke up with her anyway, not because of the constant dust, but because she wasn’t ambitious enough.

Then, after a couple of unremarkable experiences, there was Daniel. Daniel did not have any major hygiene requirements and enjoyed sweaty, sticky hugs after an entire morning spent at the gym. But, he was the type of man who wanted to hold her by the waist all night long, as tight fabric clung to every nook and cranny of her body, and sweat beaded along her brow continuously, as the fear of knowing her smile would have to drop at some point grew. He was never a violent man, per se, but had learned over the course of his life how to bend a stubborn dog to his will. When he was happy with her performance at whatever high-society social event he had been invited to, he knew to kiss her goodnight and held her tightly as the moon moved through the sky. When he was displeased, he would silently move his stuff towards the couch without a single word, sometimes going as far as to take all the sheets off the bed. Eventually, his silence drove her to insanity. She threw a pot at his head while he slumbered and ran out of the house without a word.

Now there was William. He didn’t sleepwalk; didn’t chew with his mouth open; knew how to cook and had remembered her birthday without needing a reminder. They fucked the average and appropriate amount, and he knew when it was time to buy her flowers or some other gift of affection. Often as he spoke, Veronica could see him climbing up the ladder of life, with each gift, kiss and plan being just another rung on his way to whatever afterlife he believed in. On most days, she suspected that he was an atheist, while on others she imagined that he might describe himself as a non- practicing Christian. The truth was that they had never spoken about it (“it” being “death”). On particularly cold nights when she was sitting in her studio apartment alone, it would begin to dwell on her that perhaps he had never thought about it.

Suddenly, she was sitting at a table in a restaurant with mood lighting and strictly warm-toned bulbs in all of the lights, growing increasingly aware that her friend sitting in front of her might notice that crows’ feet were forming in the corners of her eyes. Her friend’s mouth moved, and out jumped a phrase:

“I can’t believe it’s been so long since we last saw each other!”

A delightful smile remained on her face for a moment too long after she said it. Veronica wasn’t entirely sure how to respond, as the fact that they hadn’t seen each other didn’t surprise her in the slightest. The friend carried on:

“Have you been anywhere interesting recently?”

“So, what are you doing with your life?” (said with extreme excitement and glee).

“Are you still volunteering?”

Veronica could only tell her that “we” had been very busy. To her, it seemed like a normal response: “we” had become another name she had graciously adopted over the years. But she couldn’t help but notice the slight twitch in the corner of her friend’s mouth every time she said it, or the way she slowly drew further away from the table, incrementally pressing herself more and more into the back of her chair.

This pristine corner of the world was hardly ever frequented by Bill’s fellow “citizens of the public space,” though a couple would slowly slide out of the subway stations at night and rest upon a lone bench for a couple of hours before the first of the office dwellers arrived at the crack of dawn. Even the graffiti that was quickly sprayed by teens as they ran past seemed to be quietly painted over before anyone noticed. A first-time visitor to the neighbourhood might even remark that the concrete floor somehow managed to sparkle. Only Bill and the towering office buildings never seemed to fear removal. Those that “knew” him no longer spared him a second glance, and those who didn’t always softened their gaze for a second before drifting off.

The solid floor never felt like a particularly hard bed, and the lifestyle lacked loneliness. So, he was stuck to the wall like a fly in a glue trap. But where else could he go as a man with no home? Not a man without four walls or the capacity to build them, but a man without a burning hearth of his own, and no angry ghosts of ancestors to pester him while he slept. While the chill of being alone rarely struck him, he did envy the men who walked past the phone with their wives. Yes, he did long to once again feel the touch of a woman— to hold his love in his hands and feel the grooves of his fingertips pass over it.

Once long ago— since that is the way all good stories start— in his home which has since sank, Bill (who may not have been Bill at that point) had loved a woman with silk in her hair. Silk that she tied into ribbons and matched to the colour of the sky. He had at first spotted her from afar, prancing down the street with her friends like a wild gazelle, brown skin shimmering under the midday sun. All it took was a moment and a glance for Bill to know that he would spend the rest of his life waiting for her. For his girl in silk with glitter on her skin.

Week by week they passed by one another on the same street corner, Bill off to his low income job and her off to her’s, sharing but a polite sting of eye contact. Then one day when the island’s characteristic sun settled behind grey clouds, they stood shoulder to shoulder trapped under the same awning. For the second time in his life Bill felt the lightning strike of fate. And with that strike, electricity was harnessed and all modern history sprung forth from it.

“My love,” he called her. From that point forward she was only “my love,” and at night when the lights were off and they were entangled like vines he would whisper in her ear “my love, let me know that you are there,” just to hear her voice again. And so sitting underneath another set of grey skies, Bill knew why he had to wait. As all good things come in threes, lightning would strike for a third time.

I wrote this as someone who is frequently angry at religion, priests, nuns, crosses and all other emblems representing the institution of Christianity. I also wrote this as someone who cries when I place my hands together, despite not expecting anything to happen, or believing that anything will respond.

Somehow, during a moment of crisis, searching for just a few hours of respite, I ended up in a familiar churchyard. Believing, perhaps, that I was on some type of pilgrimage I sat on the steps of a side door and listened to the overlapping sounds of church bells and choir practicing in the distance. As things progressed with the force of a tidal wave, I was brought to the house of a pair of married priests (a concept which initially confused my Roman Catholic mind) by a pair of Guardian angels. 1 These priests sat on the steps of their well-lit home with me as I mumbled and sniffled about my life’s problems, kindly offering me tea intermittently. This seemed to confuse me more than anything else, as I do not drink tea and could not figure out when to take out the teabag. But I was pleasantly surprised that they did not chastise me for not finishing my cup (something I have a habit of doing with all warm drinks) and instead reminded me that the purpose was simply to warm me up, without hesitation grabbing me another cup despite the prior waste.

The conversation naturally progressed to a discussion of religion itself, as even I was confused as to how I still looked to god in times of crisis. Knowing that I would never catch a priest in such an intimate position again, I could not help but ask him whether he always believed in god. To this, he frankly replied “no”, which was another surprising change from the Roman Catholic priests I grew up with. He tried to remind me that he was human— this again, a shock— and that on a daily level, he rarely thought about it at all. Suddenly, these representations of god’s power on earth just became people who occasionally wore very modest clothing. After learning that he studied literature at school, I told him that my favourite quote was from the last paragraph of Anna Karenina:

“I’ll fail to understand with my reason why I pray, and yet I will pray.”

It’s a fairly simple concept, but I explained to him something that I had explained to someone else only days before: that prayer always felt like calling a dead number, and that the one person I was always told would respond had left me behind.

At this point, Priest #2 emerged with another piping cup of tea, and they both seemed to agree that prayers didn’t need to be answered. Priest #1, who had a refined English accent and intense stare, stated that prayer could be a bit like a warm bath. Priest #2, who had a kinder voice and a soft touch, compared it to sitting beside a trusted friend. Both implied that prayer could be something you did when there was nothing left to say.

For many people, this is obvious. It’s not as though a pair of married priests and one unstable girl discovered the concept of meditation for the first time in the big year of 2026. But somehow over the course of my life, prayer had transformed into another type of punishment. Over and over, I would seek the help of my superiors, and they would advise me to “pray on it”. The action seemed to demand knowledge of what was wrong and the ability to phrase it, and then a quiet acceptance that I would receive no help in this process. And so, the feeling of being punished seemed to be consistently reinforced, to the point where even lighting a candle for a loved one seemed to strike me like lightning.

But here I was finally being told that I didn’t need to say anything at all. That my breath alone could be interpreted as a request for help, that having the ability to sit and reflect in silence could be a type of gift and response.2 It helped even more to know that these priests were not perfect practitioners themselves: that they doubted, that they sinned. Upon entering the incredibly spacious office space of Priest #2 and seeing the walls decorated with iconography, I learned that she had been born Roman Catholic, transitioned to Greek Orthodox, and had finally ended up as a Protestant. Even people who profoundly proclaimed their faith had the ability to test their belief in it and alter the path they were on.

That tiny section of our much longer, nearly four-hour-long conversation has repeated itself in my mind every day since. As I am currently struggling with one of the most confusing mental health crises of my life, the entire philosophy seemed to carry over quite nicely. That I was (first and foremost) allowed to sit in silence, and that the process of watching the avalanche of the universe seep in for a couple of moments was a profoundly enjoyable experience, which could be treated like a gift. I cannot end this piece on a positive note of exclaiming my deep internalisation of this lesson. I cannot say that I have even totally accepted it. But, I am trying to remind myself that even priests doubt the existence of god, and thus I should be allowed to doubt myself every once and a while. In the end, I am trying, and that feels like the most human thing I can do.

Here are some of my other pieces regarding themes of religion and the weight of life. Some old, some new. Some good, some bad. Decide for yourself!

my hands are small but there are still a few things i can hold. sometimes it is not enough. recently it is never enough.

soft and supple like my childhood stomach. soft and supple like my mother's white stomach. I still cry for her hold me just as I did then. I stare at the knife that cut her open crying just as I did then.

I don't know how to reach tomorrow. But soft and supple I still look for my home.

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