Family
More than gold
More Than Gold” Liam Bennett lived in the part of town most people didn’t talk about. His family’s small, weather-beaten house stood behind a worn-out mechanic shop that his father owned and ran. Grease-stained clothes, secondhand books, and late nights fixing engines were normal for Liam. He didn’t complain. He was used to making do. Still, somewhere deep inside, he held onto dreams bigger than his surroundings.
By Abubakari Saddicabout a year ago in Confessions
I Wish To Be
used to think that love was about something I earned. I thought it was about collecting reason by reason. It feels like I will get a lot of love as a prize for having good behavior. It really seems like a reward for being the shiniest version of myself. Love makes me feel like I had to earn it. I had to be something more before I was allowed to be loved. Some say, the bitterness had to be distilled into something sweeter, before it was worthy of being swallowed. I had to carve myself into a shape that fit the hands of someone else. I had to smooth out my jagged edges, or else, I was just a burden. I was just a problem waiting to be solved. In another sentence, I was just a rough sketch no one wanted to finish. Love was not love unless it came with reasons. Unless it was because. Because, I loved them. Because, I was easy. Because, I was willing to do anything for them. Never despite. Never when I was dull. Never when I was nothing, but a quiet aching thing in my own life. Love was not love unless it was conditional. Unless it was because of. Because of my love and affection. Because of my willingness and usefulness. Because of I was easy to love. Never in spite of. Never when I was quiet. Never when I was nothing. And maybe, maybe that was why it hurt so much. Because, love was never really about me. It was about what I could be, what I could give, and how I could pay it off in return. I wish to be seen without performing. What if someone loved me when I was not even trying? When my hair was a mess from sleeping too long. When I am quiet at breakfast just watching the steam rise from my coffee. Not the me that tells good stories at parties nor holidays, but the one who sometimes stares too long at nothing. The me that exists between the big moments. Would they still look at me, then? Or would their eyes slide right past and start searching for someone more interesting? I wish to be heard without screaming. I have spent so long turning my thoughts into a bunch of fireworks. My thoughts feel loud and impossible to ignore. But, what if someone cared about the embers too? The half-formed worries I swallow down with my morning tea. The dumb little thoughts I am embarrassed to say out loud. What if they listened to my silences like they were just as important as my words? I wish to be missed without disappearing. I want to be wanted when I am right here. Right in front of the eyes that could not see me as a whole. Not when I have gone somewhere else. Not when I am just a memory wrapped in the deep memories of nostalgia. Cannot someone ache for me while I am sitting across from them at the dinner table? While my hand is in theirs on a Tuesday afternoon? I wish to be enough without proving it. There is no checklist of accomplishments. No desperate showing off of my best qualities like a street vendor displaying his wares. Just me. Me with my weird laugh and bad moods and all the unremarkable parts being sufficient. Not because I have earned it, but because love is not something I earn. I wish to be held without falling apart. I am so tired of love only finding me in pieces. What if arms wrapped around me while I was still whole? What if tenderness was not just for the broken, but for the barely holding on, for the not-quite-falling-yet? Why does kindness always come after the breaking? Why do arms only open when I am already in pieces? I want to be held when I am whole. It is not because I need it, but because someone wants to. Because my ordinary and unbroken self is worth holding too. I wish to be understood without explaining. I will not bother to translate my heart into simpler words. I will not bother to cut off the messy bits of myself to make it easier for people to love me. I will just take that quiet moment when someone nods and says ‘I know’ and actually does. I wish to be wanted without conditions. Not when I am happy. Not when I am easy. Not when I am useful. Not when I have something to offer. Not when I have to hide my flaws to be the definition of perfect. Not when I have to be someone else just to fulfill someone’s expectations. Just because, I am wanted. Just because, I am me. I wish to be. Not to be better. Not to be more. Just to be. I do not know if this kind of love exists anywhere or not, but in the margins of dog-eared poetry books, maybe it will end as a story I tell to me and myself only. A story full of beautiful lies to make the loneliness shift, like the way children imagine monsters under their beds just to explain the creaking floors. Maybe real love was not about some sort of unconditional thing. Maybe it is always a little selfish. A hunger that asks to be fed in return. Maybe it was never just take me as I am, but take me as I am… and here is what I need from you, too. Maybe that is all we ever get. And maybe, that is okay. Maybe I will learn to love the hunger instead of resenting it. Maybe I will stop waiting for someone to love me without wanting anything back and realize that is not how people work. We all want something. We all need something. Maybe the miracle is not being loved perfectly, but being loved anyway, even when it is messy. Or maybe, maybe I will spend my whole life chasing after some perfect, weightless love that does not ask me to bend. Only to realize, years too late, that I was the one who refused to bend. That I was so afraid of being loved for the wrong reasons, I would not let myself be loved at all. And that sounds like the cruelest joke, no? To finally find someone who wants me as I am, only to realize I have spent so long bracing for rejection, I forgot how to open the door when love finally knocked.
By khalidabout a year ago in Confessions
The S'Mug of Victory
My paternal grandmother is a loud, rude woman. I think you know the type. If you suggest she's being too loud or too rude, she responds with phrases like "That's just how I am" and "At least I'm honest." Neither has she ever particularly cared for me much. So, on one of the few trips to visit my family while we lived in Florida, when we went on an activity that I had chosen as a reward for doing well in school, it was no big surprise that she complained and made a scene the whole way.
By K.B. Silver about a year ago in Confessions
Together Again
Introduction This morning, I woke and my phone was on 3% power, not ideal when I needed it for my visit to Preston. My phone has my train tickets and railcard on, so without it, my journey would be a little difficult, to say the least. I think my charger is not working, but it was a cheap Poundland one, and I have had it for a few years, so it has now gone.
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred about a year ago in Confessions
I Loved Him. But I Loved Myself More
I met him on a rainy Wednesday. The kind of rain that feels like a quiet cleansing—gentle, persistent, and oddly romantic. He was standing in line at a bookstore café, holding a worn copy of Norwegian Wood and glancing at the sky like it held all the answers. I noticed the sadness in his eyes before I noticed anything else. He smiled at me like he knew me. And maybe, in a way, he did. We were both tired souls, searching for warmth in a world that had gone cold. We fell fast. Too fast. He had a way of making me feel like I was the only one in the room. His attention was intoxicating—like sunlight pouring into a dark room. I mistook that for love. For safety. For forever. But love, real love, doesn't ask you to shrink to fit it. In the beginning, I didn’t notice the little things. The way he would talk over me during conversations. How he’d make “jokes” about my dreams—telling me writing was just a phase, that no one actually makes a living from poetry. He said he was just being “realistic.” I called it teasing. But deep down, I felt the sting. I started changing in small ways. I stopped wearing red lipstick because he said it was “too much.” I laughed less. I stopped submitting my writing because he said rejections were inevitable and he didn’t want to see me hurt. The girl who once danced barefoot in her apartment to Nina Simone stopped dancing altogether. Still, I stayed. Why? Because I loved him. Because we had good moments, too—long walks at midnight, whispered secrets, slow kisses on Sunday mornings. Because I thought love was supposed to be a little painful. Because I thought maybe if I was patient enough, kind enough, quiet enough… it would all be okay. But one day, I caught myself in the mirror and didn’t recognize the woman staring back. She looked tired. Dull. Dimmed. That scared me more than losing him ever could. It wasn’t a dramatic breakup. There were no shouting matches, no slammed doors, no ultimatums. Just a quiet Sunday afternoon, where I finally found the courage to say: “I can’t do this anymore.” He looked at me like I had betrayed him. But the real betrayal would’ve been staying. That day, I chose myself. And it hurt. God, it hurt like hell. Because choosing yourself when your heart still loves someone else is the bravest kind of heartbreak. I cried for weeks. I missed him in waves—sudden and overwhelming. I missed the version of me that believed we were soulmates. I missed the dreams we had painted in quiet conversations under moonlight. But day by day, I started coming back to myself. I wrote again. I wore red lipstick. I danced in my kitchen, barefoot and laughing. And slowly, the ache in my chest transformed into something else: pride. Because I didn’t leave because I stopped loving him. I left because I finally started loving myself more. And that’s the part we don’t talk about enough—the quiet, revolutionary act of choosing yourself. Of realizing that love should never cost you your voice, your joy, your identity. He wasn’t a villain. He was just a mirror showing me what I was willing to tolerate, how much I was willing to give, and what it looked like when love required sacrifice without reciprocity. I don’t hate him. I hope he’s healing, growing, learning to love without control. But I no longer romanticize the pain. Now, when I meet someone new, I don’t dim my light to make them comfortable. I don’t apologize for dreaming loudly or loving boldly. I know now that the right person won’t just accept me—they’ll celebrate me. And I won’t settle for anything less. Because I loved him. Truly. But I love myself more. Thank you so much for reading this 🥰! If you like my story please leave a comment ❤️ thanks.
By Azmat Roman ✨about a year ago in Confessions
"Raised Between Languages"
I was born between words. Not in the sense that I came out speaking, of course—but the moment I learned to say hello, I also had to learn how to say salaam. One word felt round and warm, the other flowing like a whispered river. I didn’t realize at the time that I wasn’t just learning vocabulary—I was learning how to be different people in different languages.
By Nadeem Shah about a year ago in Confessions
Kaylee Goncalves’ Father: “We Know Why He Did It — And It’s More Disturbing Than You Think”
It’s been more than two years since the unimaginable struck in Moscow, Idaho. Four promising lives—Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin, and Xana Kernodle—were brutally taken in their own home. The crime shocked a tight-knit college town and sent waves of sorrow across the country. Now, as the legal aftermath continues, Kaylee’s father, Steve Goncalves, has spoken out bluntly:
By Bevy Osuosabout a year ago in Confessions
The Day My Smart Fridge Tried to Take Over the House. AI-Generated.
Start writing... It all started on an otherwise perfectly normal Tuesday morning. I was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping the first cup of coffee—the sacred ritual that kickstarts every day. My phone buzzed with emails, and I was just about to scroll through them when my smart fridge decided to interrupt.
By Muhammad Riazabout a year ago in Confessions
He Was My Therapist, But I Fell in Love With Him Anyway
I know how this sounds. Believe me, I’ve judged myself harder than you ever could. Falling in love with your therapist isn’t just cliché — it’s ethically complicated, emotionally messy, and, well, a little bit tragic.
By Abdushakur Mrishoabout a year ago in Confessions
When Hearts First Whisper.
It all happens that day right . The day when I have a first glimpse of your smile. If you are wondering what this lines mean then hey ! Ready for a rollercoaster ride of my life fasten your belt . Hahaha I know I know I talk a lot . My Introduction . I am your very favorite Rose I guess so .
By Roosie Roseabout a year ago in Confessions
