a daylight dream

If souls were wisps of unnatural media, hers would have been made of an orb, magnetically coloured in peaches and blues, overflowing bits and pieces of her identity; the darkness and bliss combined. Yet, at only fifteen, her soul was filled with holes that created this vast emptiness within her. Holes that were infinitesimal and unapparent, for she was able to laugh and give boundless love to those surrounding her. She was able to smile and find pleasure in the simple things she had recently discovered; her love for books, poetry and music. Among everyone else, she was the light and humour but all alone, she felt nothing but those holes and the emptiness they triggered, so helplessly she tried to consume it with destructive habits and feelings. But those holes hid within them all the darkness, and you could never tell, as they swallowed the dark and shut out the light. Months passed by, and she realised that with the things she loves most in life, she could plant seeds...

January: Getting excellent grades in my first semester exams. Learning to replace negative thoughts with beautiful ones. Realising that I had to trust my intuition to fulfil balance. Witnessing the tragic beauty in death. February: The ‘Outstanding Achiever’ ceremony with my beautiful friend. Meeting one of the most beautiful and understanding people I know today. :) Watching the trees bloom and calyxes appear. University walks in the beautiful weather. Dandelions canvassing the side-road grasses. Partially reclaiming my health back. Enjoying the warmth after a difficult winter. March: Spring and all the hope it brings. Flowers and trees wildly collaborating to colourise the realm. Taking the teaching courses online. April: Feeling anxiety at its peaks, but learning to cope with and understand it. Summer dreams and travel plans. Red and pink flowers on the silk floss trees. The mulberry trees turning emerald-green. Peach trees in the neighbour’s ga...

Sometimes I pretend the sound of the ticking clocks in my bedroom before I sleep, is the pattering of raindrops on my window sill, so I could fall asleep. So I could visualise you in my mind, with your endearing smile, with our fickle hope and vast dreams. Sometimes I pretend the sticks and stones people throw at me are jokes so that I could laugh, without turning bitter. So that I could smile as if I am taking a step closer to who I truly want to be, to the things I’d like to accomplish. Sometimes I believe the way the blanket touches my skin on a December night is the way you hold my arms close to your chest, keeping me warm, allowing me to close my eyes in a comfort indistinguishable that it sets my lips to twist effortlessly, like being in a realm of wonder and heavenly happenings. Sometimes I imagine my past as a picture to burn, or a story to empower, or both. Sometimes I like it as the tears sting the corner of my eyes, or allow a pride to swell in my chest an...

                                                                    Pictures from Poland. The year is ageing with the foggy mornings, indefinite clouds and winds blowing from the south. It’s rather queer to have December like that; unclear, sunshine-lacking and warm. I’m rather grateful for the warmth because I don’t know how I would tolerate the cold for another consecutive year, as you all know how I struggle with the evening lethargy and inability to move, with blankets covering me up, leaving everything especially my fingers to freeze. However, I don’t like the fog. I don’t like how it casts a veil, as if the planet was just a huge cloud, and we’re supposed to make our way through. Yet, it is a symbol I am listening to and perhaps a message, to clarify a lesson I should be learning before the year ends: no...

As much as I am a person who honours calmness and peace, I cannot live comfortably without momentum; one based on excitement, progress and expectations. I’m not a machine, a programmed soul, faded by repetition and lacklustre daily structures, and I cannot thrive when there aren’t goals to achieve, challenges to overcome and habits to outgrow. I need to get better at something— anything. I remember two years ago, I spent a whole year doing particularly nothing special but living in torment, guilt and shame. My baby steps towards the goals I wanted to achieve were profoundly trivial and the progress was insignificant to be measured. Adding to this, I was lost; I didn’t know who I wanted to be or what I wanted to do in my life and that just daunted me, because I wasn’t going anywhere, there’s wasn’t any direction. I need a direction, a road to follow, even if it is blurred and undetermined. Yet, the thrill of the possibility to figure it all out eventually is able to sus...

I look at my face each morning and see the haphazard freckles scattering around my nose, spreading towards the poles of my cheeks. I can see tints of darkened skin on my forehead, from gazing for too long in the sun, extending my exposure, to induce a little bit more warmth to my body. I have also noticed the veins underneath the fine skin below my eyes becoming more prominent, gaining more blueness as the colour escapes my complexion in the winter months. I’m flawed, dearest. I keep counting those imperfections, acknowledging them, so that I can tell you about their secrets when the time comes. I’m proud of each one of them, because they are not my signs of weakness, but strengths and omens of empowerment. I treasure the cracks in my skin, the faintness of my voice, the thinness of my hair. I’m a collection made by God, and I seek beauty no matter where it is, even if it is within me. Sometimes I forget all about who I am and watch the world parade in the vastness in ...

To my parents, teachers at school, professors in university and adults everywhere, Why did you wait all this time? What made you live your whole life complaining about things you can already change? Why didn’t you notice the incompletion in your identities when you were younger? Why didn’t you support yourselves? Why didn’t you find love? Why didn’t you build your own love if you couldn’t find it? Why didn’t you choose your own careers? Why didn’t you find beauty in what you were learning? Didn’t you realise the miracles of our minds? Didn’t you stop for a moment to acknowledge the magic our humanity is based upon? Why didn’t you trust God enough with all His twists of fate and accompanied tribulations? Why didn’t you consider them as challenges? Lessons to learn? Failures to overcome? Bad memories to move on from? Why didn’t you love life? Why do you feel unsafe in your own selves? Why do you bury hate, anger and shame within you? Why do you conceal your emotions in...

I cannot define failure quite accurately, but I believe they are some sort of unresolved mistakes, that haven’t proved their worth and significance  yet . ‘Yet’ because I also firmly believe that fate doesn’t brutally plan people’s failures but rather treats them as omens of reformation and change. Failures are extraordinary forces; with their might they appear both emotionally and analytically worthwhile. The sadness, fear and shame combined with reasoning allows our minds to find a way out, a solution, or perhaps a mindset that evolves and allows healing to prosper more fearlessly. Have I failed at some point? Sure. Besides that, many of my failures have proved to be major successes. Because I still am young, inexperienced and immature, most of my successes are trivial yet noticeable. However, I do have failures in the back of my mind, still resonating and ingraining their impact in my daily life, till I eventually carve the way to heal entirely and step to a new level o...

I could hear the dawn prayer calling resonating against the vacant town, all voices hidden underneath sheaths of dreams and soundless sleeps. However, I wake rather diligently, tapping into consciousness, my first sensation the coldness within my skin, numbing my feet completely. And it being mid December, I find it quite dark to call it a morning and I’m skeptical whether to leave those comfortable layers of sheets above me to carry on with that they called a day. I turn around in my place, and your face is facing the other side and I cannot see your closed eyes and morning hair, all tousled and messy, so I carefully touch your feet with mine, and they’re soft and cold like Antarctic ice. I smile, remembering us joking that we terribly failed in reaching the standards of having both of us to keep ourselves warm, and we had believed our closeness would cure the chill out of our bodies but it seemingly didn’t help. I eventually get up, drawing the blinds to find daybreak gr...

I always ask myself: can I do more? The answer is not always “yes”, for some days, I feel like I’m doing well enough; my studies, teaching, writing poetry and stories, enhancing my photography and keeping up with this blog. On those days, I usually feel the acceleration of change, the force of freshness bustling into my life that keeps me motivated and eager to push past those opportunities. But other days like today, the answer is: “yes, I can do much more.” When I hear stories around me of people doing their best to achieve and break free from the surrounding restraints, I’m thrilled to do the same. But so often, I don’t know how. I don’t know how to take my opportunities past their level to open up new doors of possible dreams. Sometimes I think, I really want to be a known writer, or a blogger, or even be able to write regular articles to a magazine or a popular online platform. What about finding myself another job? Or perhaps going more in my current one? What about...