
A place to write your heart out. Anonymous submissions shared each month from our community for you to read.
It doesn’t have to make sense. Just write what you feel.
We all have courage and insecurities. Great hopes and even greater fears. Memories and moments that shape us.
Moments we let slip away.
This is a place to write about it.
Inspired by my friend Kyla at Pure Nowhere :)
August 2025

APRIL 2025
•
APRIL 2025 •
What do you see?
sometimes i dream of deep water.
sinking to the bottom of the ocean and
seeing you.
burying my soul in the dirt.
breathing in deep blue,
like if cold air was something you could drink.
my heart won’t stop willing life into this body
so i do what i can with the time that i have.
my body is revolting.
forcing me to look at
lines in my cheeks
that have deepened
from a decade spent
learning to abandon myself.
39 beats per minute
a gesture of loyalty.
sometimes my heart slows down so much
i don’t know if i’ll wake up again.
we walk around as if we’ll be spared,
and we won’t.
but today we live.
life is beautiful and strange.
the world’s completely fucking lost it.
i hope i get to stay.
i hope we get to find something beautiful
in the mess that’s been made.

JANUARY 2025
•
JANUARY 2025 •
Where does your pain live? What soothes it? What does it taste like?
I always turn the lock.
Heavy handed on the porcelain and
I look different from the stories I tell myself.
Brutal honesty is hard to come by.
And the years I’ve spent holding myself underwater
are catching up with me now.
I wanna see what it looks like.
The skin that doesn’t know how to repair itself.
The fatigue under my eyes.
I need to know it was real.
Isolation is a poison.
Killing the host slowly.
Crushing dissent,
disarming,
unspeakable,
incorruptible.
I was naive for giving it a home.
For letting it leech the soul from my body.
For thinking, somehow, after everything,
I wouldn’t be so fucking alone.
I’ve been looking in the mirror lately,
where my fears become tangible.
When we are face to face.
I only look for long enough
when I’m high.
When my defenses crumble.
It’s hard to throw your life away
without guilt,
or swollen cheeks.
But the walls are beginning to
break down,
from neglect,
and carelessness.
From survival.
I think often of
the ways in which I’m not good enough.
The words with which I set myself on fire.
The poison that is killing me.
The poison that is the cure.
- Stef

DECEMBER 2024
•
DECEMBER 2024 •
Steffan entry 2 ♡︎
What part of yourself did you lose this year? What did you find?
Everyone says, “I’m here for you”
But I don’t think we really understand what that means.
My mom thinks laughter is the key to happiness.
Maybe she’s right.
But now I only laugh when I’m scavenging for comfort.
My friends tell me I just need to stay positive
But I don’t say anything while I’m in pain.
While my doctors are lost for words.
While my aneurysm goes unchecked,
While my body becomes irreparable.
I comfort medical professionals while they tell me to “hang in there.”
I have a good attitude while I have a stroke,
While I lose my vision,
While I make peace with death.
I don’t say anything when their surgeries fail.
When my surgeons tell me I might be better suited for a desk job,
I watch myself become disabled,
I let go of things that used to make me happy.
I stay positive while they talk to me of amputation,
Of losing control over my entire body.
And lately I’ve been contemplating my sanity,
While they deny my insurance,
While my insurance denies my claim,
While I receive a new bill,
While Gaza burns,
And my blood thinners aren’t enough to stop the clotting in my arm,
But I’m out of network anyways.
And it seems all I’ve been doing is staying positive, but
I’m exhausted from having my heart prodded and stabbed as if it were invincible.
And I know I’m not the only one,
But it’s so fucking lonely
In my room,
In the gurney
In the OR
Hallucinating off the oxy
On the bathroom floor,
At a party surrounded by all of my friends.
And I’m sorry that I’m not the same anymore.
That I don’t laugh how I used to.
I guess you could say I haven’t been feeling like myself lately.
- Stef

NOVEMBER 2024
•
NOVEMBER 2024 •
What are you fighting for? Human rights. Palestine. My friends. Myself. Family. Some chosen, some not.
How are you? At the end of October I left the hospital after waking up from surgery. Lost some vision and speech from a few strokes and wasn’t sure if I’d wake up again. The doctors said it would be a full recovery. But not everything is recoverable.
Before surgery I was calm which felt so good hahaha. Talking shit with all the surgeons in the OR and they fucking told me I was their best patient of the year WHAT I was like ‘you should come to potrero and hang out and start skating.’ Somehow I was ok with knowing I might not wake up that time. Last words before I went under, I looked at my surgeons and said, “Yo remember to have fun!!! Don’t forget to blast the music!!!!” Everything went black. I woke up to my heart rate monitor blinking and a rush of voices flying past me after 7 hours of surgery. It was 2:00 am and there was nothing to hide behind. I just cried for probably a half-hour straight. cried my fucking heart out. nowhere to hide. the incisions in my chest were raw. It was like waking up from a long sleep and knowing instantly that things will never be the same. I’m glad i’m still here. it finally feels like it was all worth it. <3
- Stef