Teenage years
Alessia Scita: The Essential Arithmetic of the Heart
I have always believed that wisdom can emerge from the most unexpected places—not just from the hallowed halls of academia or the boardrooms of power, but in the everyday conversations, in the quiet reflections of young people finding their footing in the world. When a young woman, someone like Alessia Scita, shares a piece of her personal philosophy with the world, it invites us all to pause and truly listen. Her observations, delivered with the clarity and directness that comes with truly seeing a truth for yourself, strike at the core of what it means to connect, what it means to love.
By Kate Hydeen3 months ago in Confessions
The Difference Between Hatred and Holy Intolerance
There is a dangerous confusion in today’s world. People are told that loving others means accepting everything they say, everything they do, and everything they believe. But love without truth is not love. It is surrender and cowardice disguised as compassion.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast3 months ago in Confessions
The Monsoon and the Memory. Content Warning.
July 12 A soft, percussive thud from down the street—the transformer giving up its ghost to the humidity—and suddenly, my world shrank to the four walls of my room, the only light a sickly grey bleed from the monsoon sky. The fan’s lazy whir stuttered and died, and in the silence it left behind, the rain took centre stage. It wasn't the gentle pitter-patter of romantic films; this was a full-throated roar on the terracotta tiles, a relentless, drenching downpour that turned the world outside my window into a watercolour painting left in the rain. Mumbai was drowning, and I was marooned in my third-floor apartment.
By Chahat Kaur3 months ago in Confessions
The Day I Stopped Chasing People Who Didn’t Care.
The Day I Stopped Chasing People Who Didn’t Care When I stopped running after them, I finally found me. I used to believe that if I just loved people hard enough, they’d eventually love me back. I thought devotion could rewrite disinterest, and persistence could melt indifference. Every unanswered text felt like a challenge to prove my worth, every canceled plan a sign that I just needed to try a little harder.
By Muhammad Ilyas3 months ago in Confessions
A Situationship. Content Warning.
October 15th It’s 2 AM. The city outside my window is a sleeping beast, all quiet hum and distant, lonely lights. I can’t sleep. My skin feels too tight, my thoughts too loud. It’s on nights like these that the memories don’t feel like memories at all. They feel like ghosts living just under my ribs, pressing to get out. And tonight, the ghost is him. Aarav.
By Chahat Kaur3 months ago in Confessions
The Yes Next Door. Content Warning.
We make it to the kitchen because water sounds wise and the bed was becoming a storm with no edges. The light over the sink is a warm coin; the counter is cool, slick under my palms. She hands me a glass and watches me drink like the act itself is foreplay. Maybe it is.
By Chahat Kaur3 months ago in Confessions
The Last Confession: I Burned the Box of Unsent Love Letters, And This is What Happened Next
For ten years, it sat in the back of my closet—a plain, battered cardboard box, stained at the corners from a forgotten spill. It wasn't full of letters I’d received, but letters I’d written, but never mailed. Love letters, apologies that choked in my throat, bursts of rage that evaporated into cold silence, and desperate pleas for attention. All directed at people who, thankfully or regrettably, never read them. It was, in essence, an archive of an alternate life I was always too terrified to step into.
By Hussein Gazo3 months ago in Confessions
