Fragments of the Quiet Mind

There you were again. Bittersweet. Mysterious. Smelling faintly of burnt hope and toasted almonds. I couldn’t place you, but somehow I already missed you. You arrived on a Tuesday — not a remarkable Tuesday, mind you. Just one of those limp, mid-tempo days that smelled faintly of budget cuts and existential dread. I found you sitting there, steam spiraling like a secret trying to escape, whispering things to my tired soul like: "You’ll survive this spreadsheet." "You are more than your inbox." "The meeting could’ve been an email." Was it your warmth that unraveled the corners of my anxiety? Or your bitterness — so artfully balanced, like heartbreak in a tuxedo? Loving you felt oddly familiar, like recognizing a skyline you’ve only ever seen in a dream. Or a crush on someone who doesn't exist — but has a Spotify playlist somehow eerily aligned with your breakup mood. I started timing my mornings around you. Measured my sanity by your pre...

Time moved in silence, ten years slipped past, Yet the essence endures, a message to last. Like shadows that dance in the moon’s soft glow, A presence lingers, deep and slow. In memory’s halls, where echoes swell, Laughter lingers, a haunting spell. Each moment shared, a universe spun, In the depths of silence, two souls were one. Through philosophy’s maze, they boldly tread, Seeking truths in chaos, where dreams bled. A decade’s journey, the bond still tight, In the cosmic dance, a promise alight. The Cheshire’s grin, with mystery’s gleam, Reflects bliss in a timeless dream. In the stars’ grand symphony, their tale’s unfurled, Lost in the cosmos, as time’s wheel swirled. Existence’s beauty, a fleeting sight, In eternity’s abyss, their essence alight. Though time may falter, and distance betray, A light in the soul will forever stay. As galaxies clash and constellations sway, Their connection endures, beyond decay. In the depths of forever, beyond night and day, They’ll find their path...

It all started with a cupboard under the stairs. The one place no one ever thought to look for greatness. The whole Harry Potter saga was born from a world where, apparently, the most potent wizards are nurtured on a steady diet of expired cereal and underappreciation. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? As a Muggle (or, as I like to think of myself, a "magically challenged individual"), the Harry Potter series always felt like a subtle reminder that, yes, I could be living my best life—if only I'd received an owl instead of bills in the mail when I turned eleven. But alas, life decided I'd be better suited to navigating traffic jams and existential dread rather than broomsticks and basilisk battles. Speaking of battles, let’s talk about the Sorting Hat. That tattered old relic managed to sort out everyone’s deepest desires and future prospects with all the precision of a Magic 8-Ball. It's like a personality test, but with more theatrics. Imagine if we had that...

The strange thing about silence is how loudly it speaks when you’re not listening for it. It hums in the background, unnoticed, until you’re left standing amidst the remnants of choices never made and words never uttered. A quietness that feels less like absence and more like presence, like an unspoken truth lingering in the air. We’re all haunted by decisions we never made, like ghosts that won’t leave the corners of your mind. It’s a strange thing, regret. Not the kind that claws at you with sharp edges, but the kind that seeps in slowly, like smoke, unnoticed until you’ve already inhaled it. You realize, maybe a little too late, that some things should’ve never been touched. Some words should’ve never been spoken. And some silences? Perhaps they were meant to stay locked in place, never to be disturbed by the rashness of our own desires. But the mind, restless as it is, cannot leave well enough alone. There’s this vault, see, tucked deep within—hidden under layers of fleeting distra...

At the peak of midnight where its solemnly silent, in the mysterious realm of the night, where darkness veils the world, my thoughts take shape, unraveling like a tapestry of ominous reflections. Shadows dance, weaving intricate patterns that mirror the complexities of my inner self. Sometimes, within this nocturnal sanctuary, I find solace. Happiness blossoms briefly, suspended in the delicate threads of thought. In those moments, simplicity reigns, and I feel liberated from the burdens of the day. Yet, more often than not, the descent into night brings despair. The breath of morning carries suffocating tendrils, weaving invisible shackles that entangle my spirit. Reasons for this anguish elude me, like distant whispers lost in the wind. Stagnation grips me tightly, and respite feels elusive. I am drawn into a swirling vortex, a void of inertia. Lost amidst fragmented thoughts and vacant gazes, I float aimlessly, trapped in an unfathomable realm. The shattered mirrors of my mind refle...

Once, the weight of words fell directly into another's hands.  Over a table.  Beneath a your cheap slow ceiling fan bought at shopee.  In the shadowed pause between heartbeats where one dared to be seen . But now? Now we bleed into screens. We scatter our grievances across fiber optic veins, each confession wrapped in curated mystery — a status here, a story there — hoping the algorithms might understand the things we are too afraid to say aloud. It is not dialogue. It is performance. Therapy for an audience we cannot touch. We call it connection. We call it healing. But sometimes it feels like shouting into a void that only reflects your own voice back at you. We craft vague laments and exquisite accusations in 280 characters or less, praying for the balm of a like, the lifeline of a comment. We trade the raw, trembling labor of conversation for the quick narcotic of validation, forgetting that what we seek cannot be delivered by a tap on a screen. The person we...

At night, everything unravels. The day folds itself into strange corners, and the shadows start speaking again. Sometimes there’s a kind of quiet, where for a second, breathing feels like a choice, and not a battle. Those moments are rare. Most days feel heavier than they should. You wake up already losing, like something invisible got its hands around your throat, feeling suffocated even before you opened your eyes. And you don't know why. You drift. Half there, half somewhere else. Staring through people. Forgetting how to answer simple questions. The world feels like a broken mirror, with each shard showing a version of you you don’t recognize. You reach for yourself and cut your hands open. People try to help. They mean well. They tell you to talk, to "get out more," to laugh at things that feel hollow. You nod. You shrink. You learn how to smile without meaning it. You could pretend. You could meet them halfway. Lower yourself into that easy, forgettable noise. But y...

There’s a strange stillness that settles in the aftermath of everything falling apart—like the world has exhaled, but you’re still holding your breath, waiting for something to change. You move through the wreckage, unsure of what to salvage, but you know you can't keep pretending everything is fine. The weight of it all presses down on you, suffocating, relentless. Hope feels like a distant concept, something from another life, while the storm around you only grows louder. It’s as if you’re standing at the edge of a blade, every step carrying the sharpness of inevitability. You search for relief, for an escape, but what you find is the echo of your own pain. It’s not just betrayal—it’s the feeling of being left behind, discarded in favor of something more convenient. The faces you once trusted now hide behind their lies, their smiles sharp like knives that cut deeper with every moment. It’s as though you’ve become a shadow, a ghost haunting a life that doesn’t fit anymore. Each b...

Paradox.   It’s the thing that clings to us, even when we don’t ask for it. A puzzle without a solution, wrapped in the trappings of our daily grind. We're told life is meant to be lived, to be experienced, yet with each breath we take, it feels as though we’re slowly suffocating. Every step forward, a step into an endless loop. Who we were and who we are are distant echoes, separated by time and choice, like shadows that stretch and shrink without warning. We chase answers as if they’ll bring clarity, but all we find are more questions—more locked doors. The more we seek, the more it slips away, like sand through our fingers. There’s always a part of us that feels just out of reach, something we can’t quite grasp, yet the second we stop reaching, that same emptiness comes rushing in. The more we want, the more we lose. The more we run, the further we are from the finish line. And yet, stopping to rest feels like surrender, like admitting that this chase, this madness, might never...

Despair doesn’t knock. It just enters, creeping through the cracks in your mind, sliding into every thought, every breath, until it feels like it’s always been there. You never see it coming. One moment, everything feels normal, or at least bearable. And then, like a thief in the night, it’s there—silent but suffocating. It wraps itself around your chest, makes it hard to breathe, and the more you try to push it away, the stronger its hold becomes. It doesn’t announce its presence with any grand gestures, no dramatic flare. It’s subtle, sneaky even. Maybe it starts with a moment of confusion, a fleeting thought you can’t shake. Or perhaps it’s the weight of a thousand little disappointments, stacking up until you can no longer ignore their presence. Each new layer presses down harder, until it becomes your only reality. The world becomes distant, almost irrelevant. The faces you see every day, the voices you hear, they seem muffled and unreal, as if they’re happening in another worl...

Last night i was scrolling through my feed, watching friends share grief after grief—losses, heartbreaks, moments that should have made us gather, cry together, hold each other close. Instead, all I did was tap a heart emoji under each post, one after another, like I was ticking off some empathy checklist. I felt this strange disconnect. Was that really me caring? Or just a shadow of it? It hit me then—this paradox we live with every day. We’re more connected than ever, but somehow the caring feels hollow. The digital world teaches us to perform empathy in tiny clicks and quick comments, but it rarely lets us be there. The silence, the awkwardness, the weight of someone else’s pain—those don’t translate well through a screen. I keep asking myself: When did empathy become a set of symbols? When did “I’m here for you” turn into an emoji? There’s something unsettling about caring that feels rehearsed, like a script we all read but don’t fully understand. It’s empathy reduced to conven...

  I once drafted a three-paragraph reply to a message that only said “cool.” Then I deleted it and sent a thumbs-up. Not because the longer version was wrong—but because it felt too much . Too honest, too layered, too likely to be misunderstood in a world that measures meaning by brevity and speed. That blinking “typing…” bubble is its own kind of limbo. A space where we practice vulnerability without risk. A modern confessional booth with no priest on the other side—just the fear of being “seen” the wrong way. It’s easier to live in the anticipation of a message than to deal with its consequences. We’ve mastered the art of holding back. You draft a message to clarify your tone, to explain your silence, to ask a question that matters—and then you close the app. Not because you changed your mind, but because you started imagining the worst possible reply. Or no reply at all. So you send a meme instead. Something safe. Something that doesn’t require anyone to actually respond —ju...