A role can be anything: mother, daughter, friend, partner, colleague. As humans, we move through a series of roles depending on circumstance, proximity, and need. Over time, roles accumulate rules. These rules are rarely explicit. They develop gradually, shaped by repetition, expectation, and what proved functional. As conditions change, the
Power does not require domination. It does not need volume, aggression, or intent. Power exists wherever one person’s choices shape another person’s reality. Parents have power over children. Managers have power over employees. Emotionally regulated people have power over dysregulated ones. People with stability have power over people
Emotional intelligence is often confused with tolerance. With staying calm while absorbing harm. With understanding someone’s limitations and adjusting accordingly. With not making things “a big deal.” That is not emotional intelligence. That is emotional labour. Emotional intelligence does not require you to carry the consequences of someone else’
“I didn’t mean to” is often offered as a repair. It isn’t. It is a statement about intent, delivered in response to impact. Those are not the same category. When someone says “I didn’t mean to,” they are not addressing what happened. They are repositioning themselves as
Unreliability is often framed as a personality trait. Busy. Overwhelmed. Bad with time. Bad at planning. Something innate. Something forgivable. But unreliability is not a trait. It is a behaviour—and it has a cost. When someone repeatedly fails to follow through, the impact does not land on them. It
They Lied to Keep You From Choosing There is a comforting myth we tell about dishonesty. That people lie to protect feelings. That they lie because they’re afraid of hurting someone. That omission is kindness with better manners. It isn’t. Most lies are not about tenderness. They are
Most systems don’t fail loudly. They keep working — just not for everyone. Deadlines are missed, but things still get done. Decisions are delayed, but someone fills the gap. Responsibilities blur, but outcomes are delivered. From the outside, it looks functional. From the inside, it relies on a small number
I did not come here to be adored. I came to be steady when the room tilts. To be the hand on the small back that does not flinch when the story gets loud, or inconvenient, or ugly. I came to learn the weight of my own shadow— how it
The world didn’t leave. I did. I folded myself smaller until I fit inside a checklist. Learned to speak in deadlines. Learned the holiness of “later.” Learned that if I stayed useful enough, nothing bad would happen. That was the deal. Days became transactions. Breath in, task out. Nothing
The year loosens like a knot warmed by breath— not broken, not forgiven, just finished with. It releases me quietly, the way night softens a room without announcing itself. No ceremony. Just the easing of what no longer needs to be held. I don’t chase it to the door.
Ink on skin-thin paper. The blade warm from my hand. Too much and it bruises. Too little and nothing stays. The first pull stutters — grain catching, edge biting back. The room smells faintly metallic. Rubber. Oil. Breath held too long. I press again. Harder this time. The line blooms, then
The sea loosens its grip and the shore opens wide, a sheet of silver, breathing. Clouds gather and drift apart, blue rinsed thin with light, weather learning how to wait. They cut across the quiet, dark commas in a long sentence of water, their reflections briefly believing themselves. Waves arrive
The Margin
I am not built from wreckage. I am built from noticing. From the way dusk leans before it leaves. From jokes that land sideways. From staying long enough to finish my drink and leaving before I’m asked. I keep warmth like contraband— quietly, close to the body. I don’
The Margin
Morning comes without asking what survived the night. Not light— not yet— just the loosening of dark along the edges of things that held anyway. The sky thins. Streetlamps hesitate. Somewhere, a bird tests the hour with one sharp note and decides to wait. I stand where I am and
The Adult
I believed there was a reason buried under the silence— something still whole, if I stayed long enough, if I pressed carefully, if I didn’t flinch. I mistook absence for depth. Avoidance for complexity. I kept circling the wound, calling it understanding, calling it patience, calling it love. But
The Margin
You were sunlight before you ever spoke, a spark I caught and carried home — I was still a child myself, learning the shape of love through you. We grew together, you and I — two wild hearts finding rhythm, babies raising each other on borrowed courage and small joys. Your first
The Margin
She is the hush between pages, the pause before thought begins — a sliver of silver dusk stretched across my windowsill. Her paws make no sound, yet the air changes when she moves. She walks like smoke with intention, as if gravity has learned her name. I call her goddess, though
The Margin
There’s a sound the air makes when it stops needing to hold its breath. It’s softer than forgiveness, heavier than silence— a kind of peace that doesn’t ask to be earned. I find it between half-unpacked boxes, in the hum of the heater, in the way my
The Margin
Some chapters end in fire, others in the slow unraveling of thread—pull one loose and watch the careful weaving come undone in your hands. Trust returns like winter light: slant and cautious, illuminating the framework beneath—vertebrae that held even when the foundation cracked and shifted. There’s a
The Line
that corrects an imbalance.
The Line
it is usually because it removes a convenience.
The Line
because it is quiet.
The Line
Even if you handled it well.
The Line
It only decides who carries it.