Originally Published in Ginger & Smoke Vol. 1, October 31, 2025 Behind my eyelids, I meditate in colours. A gentle breath in and out; my diaphragm rising and falling with each exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. I start to detach my awareness from the overwhelming cacophony of modern life—cars backing up in driveways, trains screeching on metal tracks, the sounds of electricity buzzing in my apartment—and continue to focus on my breath. I connect to the rich inner world o

I used to overthink and not share anything in the pursuit of perfection and self-protection. I became trapped in thought loops and my own patterns of questioning myself before I even tried. So much of my expression is borne out of pain but so much is also borne out of the gratitude I feel for each breath I take. Sharing these feelings is vulnerable and terrifying and I know this is why I have held back for so long. But I cannot keep hiding, I need to share and open parts of

For the last few years, I have been quietly filling the pages of notebooks and documents with hundreds of thousands of words; devouring books on a range of topics with a fervour I had not experienced since childhood and creating thousands of pieces of art for the first time since I was a teenager. But I kept all of it hidden away to gather dust and live in the liminal space between the act of creation and the act of sharing with open-hearted vulnerability. The hiding of