Fragments of the Quiet Mind

“Some songs ask to be felt, not performed. He chose the wrong answer.” I wasn’t even planning to watch. I was just flipping channels, letting boredom pick for me, when The Clash came on — that singing competition where emotions get belted louder than the lyrics. I stayed. Not because I follow the show (I don’t), but because I heard someone say he was going to sing Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls. That song doesn’t just play — it haunts . It’s stitched into the background of moments I don’t talk about often. Quiet heartbreaks. Long drives. Things left unsaid. The contestant, apparently, was a crowd favorite. Maybe it was his backstory, or his journey, or the way the camera loved him. I had no idea who he was. I didn’t carry his narrative. All I had was the song. And then he sang it. And I wished he hadn’t. He didn’t cover Iris . He performed over it — louder, shinier, emptier. What was once a song that bled quietly now sounded like it was trying to prove something. He turned a confess...

There’s a quiet shame stitched into the seams of wanting. Not just wanting something—no, we’ve learned to be bold about ambition, about goals, about the curated dream lives we post in digestible squares. But the wanting to be chosen? To be someone’s definite yes in a world of soft maybes? That kind of wanting, we tuck under polite detachment. We make jokes. We pretend we didn't notice when they hesitated. We apologize with our silence. With sentences that trail off. With the way we say “no worries” too quickly when someone forgets to show up, as if our worth is measured by how little space we occupy when disappointed. When did needing connection become a flaw? When did the ache to be seen—fully, wildly, without edit—become something we felt the need to shrink? I used to think I was too much. Too sensitive. Too intense. Too honest in a world that taught us to blink away the truth with emojis and distractions. I learned to wrap my needs in disclaimers. “I know this sounds clingy...