Childhood
Through The Bareness Of 2024- My Journey
Life in its brevity often feels burdensome, yearning for us to be free of all the turbulence that stirs up its breaths in our hearts. How beautiful would life be if we let go of pain, anger, sadness, grim! I wish we had built-in programming that would delete all the moments and experiences that stirred catastrophic fires and raged war and kindled and whooshed the fire within us simultaneously!
By Hridya Sharma2 years ago in Confessions
12 Reminders for Year-End Reflection
It is that time of the year again when everyone posts how truly they have accomplished feats of success, competence, grit and determination. How magnificently their vision boards have manifested in the brilliance of their alluring existence! While it is a celebratory feat for all those who had a year that was filled with love and light, it is important to remember that the life projected on social media is the highlight of someone’s best days in the entirety of their existence. It is amazing for someone to put themselves out there and post their joy for life on their platform, but in the world where comparison is so normalised, I hope you remember life does not need to be aesthetically pleasing and swoon-worthy for it to be called a perfect life.
By Hridya Sharma2 years ago in Confessions
The Day I Can't Remember
The afternoon sun beat down on the bustling streets of Nairobi as I left my tuition classes, my backpack heavy with books and my mind still swimming with mathematical equations. I was fifteen then, a tenth-grade student with the usual teenage concerns – upcoming exams, friendship drama, and getting home before my favorite TV show started.
By mayta emily2 years ago in Confessions
When no one fought for me.
In my darkest moments, when life’s edge felt dangerously close, I was starkly alone. The guardians who should have been my bulwark were absent, leaving me unshielded and vulnerable. It’s a deep-seated pain to realize that those we call family — parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles — sometimes fail to stand up for us when we need it the most. The people who should have loved and protected me were nowhere to be found when I needed them the most. This absence created a gaping hole in my life that, for years, I tried to fill with the wrong things — love, attention, and validation from people who couldn’t give me what I needed.
By Zapphire Zucca2 years ago in Confessions
The Seasonal Chronicles
DECEMBER - 2024 It's December again—the tumultuous December, when life ends at the hands of an unflinchingly brazen cold. As hopes dip into unsheathing horrors of fate, and woes intertwine into an unyielding vault of perennial desperation, life has become piercingly unbearable. Evoking valor and summoning little pieces of my fragmented existence every time I let myself step out of my fated misery, I feel like shedding off the skin of my carefully woven dreams, leaving the cast of my unfulfilled hopes to wither and wan, carefully plodding, never looking back at what destiny considered too heavy for my soul to be clothed in. As cold ascends further, I must find myself a cloak of warmer misfortune, lest I die at the hands of a cooler misery.
By Isha2 years ago in Confessions
An ode to my journey
Remember the times when we would yearn for certain things and beings to foster their being into our lives, where what we wanted was so far-fetched, dreams that we found so unfathomable to forge their breaths in our lives? It is wondrous and almost astonishing how existence in the most unimaginable ways, how we fathom that something we can never live without, life always turns out for the better when we let go of what no longer serves us, of what we can no longer control or any experience, person, entity or situation that we outgrow in our existential being.
By Hridya Sharma2 years ago in Confessions
How I Learned About the Wickedness of Man — Well, in This Case, "Women". Content Warning.
How I Learned About the Wickedness of Man — Well, in This Case, "Women" POV: I was nine years old. 😢😩 There are boarding schools, and then there’s Command Secondary School. I’ve heard many stories from other boarding schools, but nothing compares to what Command was like in the 2000s. I can’t speak for 2024, but back then, it was the devil’s playground. Everyone was either a pawn or being pawned.
By Zulaihat Tijani2 years ago in Confessions
Her Quote, My Journey
Today’s was one of those cold winter mornings when the air seems to be cold and everything seems to be a little more still than it was the day before. We were at our usual table in the canteen having tea with biscuits in between while chatting with friends. We enjoyed the warmth of the tea after coming from the cold, the sound of plates slapping each other joined the faint murmurs that filled the air.
By Musanif Ali2 years ago in Confessions
Harmattan Morning: Surviving Boarding School During "African Winter" . Content Warning.
When I think of boarding school, so many memories flood my head. I remember what it was like in jss1. I remember every single emotion. I remember the smell, I remember the sounds. The first time I slept without dreaming was in boarding school. And now I can't sleep for a month straight without dreaming about boarding school. I guess this is what bullying does to the mind of an adult. I am not a psychologist, I know not the accurate diagnosis. A nine year old, left in the cold world of boarding school. Trust me, that’s horror.
By Zulaihat Tijani2 years ago in Confessions
Getting "Initiated" As a Teenager. Content Warning.
The first time I heard about the word initiation was in primary school. When we were talking about some Nigerian horror movie we weren’t supposed to watch. The ones that had “cultists” who pillaged and plundered students in Universities. Or the ones that involved a coven of witches that took pleasure in switching wombs and tying husbands to spiritual wives.
By Zulaihat Tijani2 years ago in Confessions
When the Holidays Took an Eternity to Come
It’s hard to believe how fast the month of December has gone by! I can’t believe how fast this entire year has gone! It seems like not long ago, I was taking walks in the warm summer evening. September was just getting started and I was laughing at how early people were decorating for Halloween.
By Jasmine Aguilar2 years ago in Confessions
