Ethereal Echoes

 Once, a teacher asked us to write about our positives and negatives. I remember staring at the paper for a long time. Not because I had nothing to say, but because I had lived too much to pretend anymore. When I finally wrote, my positives looked uncomfortable on paper : selfish self-centred obsessed with myself against society  someone who keeps strong boundaries. When my teacher read it, she looked at me with doubt. She asked if I was sure those were my positives. She reminded me that I was human, that I should have values, empathy, and concern for others, and told me not to be selfish. But I stood there, confident in my answer. Because what she saw as flaws were not qualities I was gifted with. They were qualities I survived into. I wasn’t always like this. I wasn’t born selfish or self-centred. I was once a people pleaser who tolerated too much and stayed silent for too long. I carried others’ comfort at the cost of my own peace. That version of me paid a heavy price. The...

Sometimes I wonder if the greatest curse of human life is the way we rush through it. Everything else on this earth lives at its own gentle pace. Nothing in nature hurries, yet everything happens perfectly on time. Buds take days to open. Rivers travel miles to meet the sea, carving rocks slowly, shaping hard stones into smooth pebbles over years. The sky changes its colors from dawn to dusk in its own rhythm. Trees stretch their roots deep into the soil, growing quietly and patiently. Even the mountains take centuries to form and never once try to hurry their becoming. Birds leave their nests each morning, not to compete, but to simply live another day. The rain falls when it must, not earlier or later. The sea breathes in and out without pause. The clouds drift freely, carrying stories from faraway lands. Nothing forces its way forward. But we humans are always in a hurry. From the moment we are born, we are taught to move faster. We rush to grow up, to finish school, to enter colleg...

   “ You don’t know the value of someone until they leave .” We often hear people say this... But have you ever thought about the flip side? Sometimes, it’s when certain people leave your life that you truly realize your own worth...like a bird discovering the vastness of the sky once the cage is gone. Some people enter your life like sunlight through a window...they warm your soul, lift your spirits, and color your days with joy. They make you feel seen, appreciated, and alive. And then there are those who do the opposite. They drain your energy, criticize everything you do, and make you question yourself. Their presence can feel heavy, like walking through mud, sticky and exhausting. Their words can cut deep, their constant negativity can make you feel small, unwanted, and unseen. No matter how much you give or how hard you try, it’s never enough...their shadows seem to swallow your light. Letting go of such people is not a loss....it’s a release. At first, it may feel stran...

  You once hummed softly, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine ☀️...” But if I truly was your sunshine… why did you never step out from the shadows of your pride to feel my warmth? Why didn’t you choose to talk, to heal our quarrels, to bridge the silence between us? Why did you shut every door and window, yet still expect me to find my way to you through the cracks? Why didn’t you tell me I mattered? That you needed me? Don’t you remember how many times I returned to you, even when you had locked me out completely? I searched for the smallest opening, a keyhole, a gap, just to pour my light inside. If I had known you were suffering quietly, I would have filled your world with flowers and bees, with endless blossoms. But you let your ego stand between us, even when I was ready to be your whole world. You knew I always returned after every night faded into dawn. But this time… days passed, weeks passed, and you never came looking. When I asked if you would love me till your last b...

  Sometimes the quietest places hold the loudest parts of who we are... Tonight, I lay back on the old bench in the garden—the one that has aged alongside me. Its wooden frame groans softly beneath me, worn down by time, carrying the weight of countless moments spent in its embrace. Resting here feels more like revisiting a memory than simply lying down—like meeting a past version of myself, familiar yet distant. Above, the sky stretches wide, sprinkled with stars. I let my gaze drift, moving from one shimmering dot to another, the same way I did as a child. Back then, I believed they held stories—messages waiting for me to decode if I looked long enough. Maybe part of me still believes that. Every now and then, a plane moves across the sky, its blinking lights tracing a quiet path. From here, it’s just a tiny speck, but inside, people are traveling—toward something, away from something, or lingering somewhere in between. I wonder if they are chasing dreams, escaping, or simply sea...

  She had once believed in the world. She had stepped into it with open arms, with trust painted across her palms, with love unguarded and unmeasured. She had waited—for warmth, for understanding, for a place among them.   But the world had never paused for her. It was relentless—an unforgiving tide of motion, of voices colliding without listening, of footsteps rushing without ever stopping.    And so, one day, she stopped waiting for it to love her back.   The city around her pulsed with chaos—honking horns, rushed footsteps, endless noise. It all pressed in on her with invisible claws, sharp and suffocating. Her chest rose and fell with rapid breaths, her heartbeat thudding in her ears like an unwanted anthem. The stress etched itself into her bones, and with trembling hands, she reached into her bag—not for pills or water, but for the only medicine that ever truly worked: a book.    Peace. That was all she ever wanted. Not admiration. Not...

   Have you ever met the right person at the wrong time? It’s like drowning—not in water, but in life. You’re sinking slowly, breathless beneath the weight of your world. The deeper you go, the more silent everything becomes. Your limbs float like forgotten thoughts, your chest tightens with each heartbeat. The fight within you begins to fade, replaced by a quiet, eerie acceptance.   And then—you see it.   A thick, gnarled root drifts above you, cutting through the distorted light. It’s strong. Steady. Alive. You can almost feel its warmth through the freezing depths. That root is them— the person you never knew you needed until your soul screamed for help .   And suddenly, hope flares—wild and desperate. Every cell in your body strains to reach, to rise. The stillness inside you shatters. You want to live again. You want to breathe again. But the ocean is cruel, and time is unkind.   Because you’ve sunk too deep.   Your legs a...

 The river simply stretches its arms wide, without asking any questions, as if it welcomes her.   Pressing her bare feet into the damp earth, she stands at its edge, her white dress billowing like a ghost half-born. She closes her eyes, listening to the soft murmur of water around her—a lullaby too tender for the violent screams tangled in her thoughts.   Once, she moved through the corridors of Elsinore, her presence a hush before rain—her steps unnoticed, her words soft-spoken, her voice swallowed by the wills of men who dictated her fate. Her father told her whom to trust, and her brother warned her whom to love.   But Hamlet’s love had been sweet once—or so she believed. There was the warmth of devotion in his words, and his gaze held the promise of something pure. He admired her—her beauty, her softness. But love, in its cruelest form, does not fade—it fractures, leaving poor souls to suffer.   The change came like winter’s frost—slow, c...