A year ago, I thought the world was ending. Anguish tainted every waking moment a bitingly toxic shade of green, as that of the sky when a tornado brews. It was inescapable; no matter any temporary joy, a hint of chartreuse always remained. 

That's how heartbreak works, after all, infiltrating every last nook and cranny with a noxious smoke that slowly eats away at already chipped paint covering up everything you've avoided confronting. The varnish always cracks. The lies, the secrets, the insecurities, everything always seeps out like pus from a septic wound eventually. ​

[Content warning: depression, disordered eating.]

She didn’t like paint. She didn’t like how the colored pigments stuck to her skin and dried on her ripped jeans in sticky hard lumps. It’s like another layer of skin, she would say to me and I would agree cringing at the thought. The last thing I needed was another shell suffocating me. 

Perhaps it was our mutual hatred for colored resin that brought us together, or maybe the fact that both of us needed a partner to navigate the stormy waters of freshman year. Whichever it was, it didn’t matter. What mattered was she was like me.  ​

​​three ghosts inhabit this house, drifting along the concrete floors. we sway when the wind breaks in, shifting closer but never together. sometimes, i place my hand on the cracked walls of this house and feel for an absent pulse. sometimes, i wish we were a home. sometimes, i let the wind carry me along, coursing through the aged bitterness saturated in the air. my feet have never known solid ground, but i'm okay with that, just as long as i keep floating. the harshest reality only comes if i ever fall.

Joy: a feeling of great pleasure or happiness. Alternatively: a chemical reaction. Alternatively: a necessary survival instinct. Also: yellow stains on glaring white teeth, gregarious roaring in a public place, the tickle that runs down your hand when you enter somewhere great. 

Depression: feelings of severe despondency and dejection. Alternatively: a chemical reaction. Alternatively: a necessary survival instinct. Seen in: written-journals collecting dust, a letter never sent, the drop in my heart when I realize I no longer love. ​

Written in the style of Lorrie Moore. ​

When you’re in first grade, your mom will tell you to pick an instrument. “To be a well rounded person, you shouldn’t just be good at school, you should have skills in other areas of life too," your mom will say. You will only be, like, six or seven years old, so you won’t really get it. You’ll just shrug your shoulders and hope that being a well rounded person doesn’t include playing sports too. Off the top of your head, you pick the violin because you don’t want to play something you have to blow into. ​

​I never really saw the stars, or the universe at all. Just because it was covered by darkness and fear. With its horrible sight of evil, it changed. And when I said it changed, my friend, it did. Because of hope and the lightness that came back. I wanted to wash all the sickness and make it clean again. With its white and beautiful colors of light, humanity began reassuring that everything is going to be okay again. It took one day at a time to remove all the darkness because there was a lot of it. But if we have hope in it. We will make it go away much faster. We want to make this thing go away. On the 365th day, it was gone, the darkness was gone and everything evil was gone. If that darkness ever comes back, we will come together as one and we will fight it away. But on that night we saw the stars and the universe again. It was magnificent. The glittery and the white stars that shimmer with happiness and excitement. With the universe, we saw the wonderful white and greyish moon that glistens in the sky. And the sky was amazing and it was a navy blue color with the white and puffy clouds. That was the day we saw the stars and the universe again. 

​I always wonder what it is like to be someone else. I was always a quiet kid, someone who didn’t talk much and preferred a book over people. Until now.

I guess being mute was boring after a while. Sure, I wasn’t completely mute, I still talked, but it seemed like the world hated me. Remember that feeling when everyone in your class got ice cream and you didn’t? It kind of feels like that. I was left out.

I will keep inking the paper that has been presented before me until I have nothing to extract, until I have nothing. But there is everything to write, everything to know, and beyond that is what is yet to befall upon many of us in the midst of this pandemic. The deeply-rooted issue has regressed for the umpteenth time and its reactions have surpassed its limit, its patience, to the nth degree. History is repeating itself in the open, as a maddeningly viralized dimension of America has resurfaced. This year is a year we did not ask for. This year is a retelling of what should remain in the past, but has progressed and persevered to the point that society is actually moving backward. This year is an affirmation of how pronounced the problem is, and many have failed to acknowledge it actively. ​

​“George Floy(D) unrest: Pol(I)ce out in force in major cities to tamp down on riots as curfews take effect” - Fox News “Riots, looting after George Flord death could deal fatal blow to businesses reeling from (V)(I)rus outbreak” - Fox Business “Protests Over George Floyd (D)(E)ath( )Block (T)raffic, Reac(H) Trump Tower” - The N(E)w York Ti(M)es( ) “A(M)erican carnage: These aren’t pr(O)tests - they’(R)(E) riots.( )Someone must en(D) the lawlessness” -USA TODAY “R(I)ots against police (V)(I)olence aren’t the an(S)wer” – Vox “Reth(I)nking the Ri(O)ts” - The Chicago Maroo(N) “Troubling( )videos capture L.A. police violence a(M)id prot(E)sts” - Los (A)ngeles Times “State, federal age(N)t(S) investigating( )‘violent extre(M)ists’ c(O)nnected to Austin p(R)ot(E)sts” - KXAN( ) “(M)ass pr(O)tests a(N)d mayh(E)m continue into a sixth night; thousands nationwide are arrested during weekend” - Washington Post “Wh(Y)( )Violent Protests Work” 

​Before I realized it, tears flowed out of my eyes like water pouring from an open faucet. The sound of the salty liquid hitting the wood played a more beautiful symphony than my frozen fingers could at that point. The notes that I had played over and over again for the past three months were suddenly not just lifeless black dots on lines. They made sense to me. They spoke to me. I dropped to my knees in agony and cried for all that I had been holding onto for the last three years. 

​Our first formal introduction was just a few months after I immigrated to Canada. Being in a foreign country surrounded by problems that I didn't understand and didn't know how to solve was trapping brightness and creativity inside of me. I held it up from the case and carefully examined its intricate wooden structure. With a pluck of my finger against its metal string, a note bounced out. It was not at all beautiful - perhaps it could even be considered a horrible sound - but it brought out something that I had longed for in the gloomy days that seemed to follow me around. Violin. That's what they told me it was. And it was one of the first English words I learned since coming to Canada. 

Rupi Kaur, a Punjabi-born Canadian poet, writer, illustrator and performer, has become the most ‘Instagrammable’ sensation; she is followed by Ariana Grande on instagram, has had Sam Smith tattoo some of her work onto his arm and has appeared on the front page of the Cosmopolitan. She has graced the covers of the Canadian press as she was seen to be endorsing Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh a candidate running for Prime Minister in Canada.

Although her work seems to be at all-time high, she alongside other people of ethnicity, has suffered her fair share of challenges, suffering backlash from the media for her work. In 2014 Kaur released her self-produced poetry book ‘Milk and Honey.' Although it had sold over 2.5 million copies in 25 languages and spent 77 weeks on the New York Times Best-Seller List, she received lots of criticism for her work.

Some days, I like to lose myself.
Drift between the corners of others’ minds. Hoping to get a slow artificial faint to act as a getaway from the aching of my own mind.
I watched a girl sitting alone on the bus, happiness obvious on her face while she held her phone; a boy searching for his love in a city, but not doing what he wanted; there was family spending time together, but with each member thinking of his own personal life. 
We are all so close that we can feel our breaths crossing, colliding in the air.
Have we ever noticed how unaware we are? Have we ever seen the ghosts behind people's eyes? 
We're moving between the people in the crowd, touching but not connecting. 
We don’t realize that we're all just background noise to each other's lives. 

A few years ago, I saw a Ted Talk by John Green. I didn't know much about him at the time, but his message of how learning is the meaning of life resonated with me. He talked about how YouTube is a good platform for learning things, if you know where to look. This brought out the excitement for learning new things that I had felt as a child when I watched movies and TV and absorbed things from them. 

Anxiety. What does it mean? What even is it?

The definition of it is “an overcoming feeling of worry or nervousness." In some circumstances I can relate to that; it is worry. It is nervousness. However, it is so much more that that feeling.

She fractures her soul and mixes it into pâte à choux. This is the only way she knows how to survive; baking away intrusive thoughts and feelings that take up residence in her flour-dusted mind. 

70 grams super-fine almond flour. 

90 grams confectioner's sugar. 

For the longest time, fifteen years to be exact, I dreamed of growing up to be a ballerina. I took my first ballet class at the age of three after begging my parents to sign me up. My initial years of ballet were exactly as I had imagined before starting; I wore a pink leotard with pink tights and pink ballet slippers, as I leapt around freely and marveled in the magic of the yearly production of The Nutcracker. 

My family and I have done quite fascinating things together, but our first time snorkeling was a milestone I would never forget. 
Swarms of fish swam under me as I listened to my heavy breathing. 
Earlier that day…

I have always considered waves to be one of the most beautiful aspects of nature to exist.
​Their constant motion and ability to start over again and again in spite of whoever looks on exemplifies resilience to me, and I have loved this idea because it was a needed reminder that people always have the ability to move forward, as long as they let themselves do so.