Life is a tightly budded flower, thorny and gnarled on a bush, wind battered and opened to bloom, not their store bought plastic flower…
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I was bawling. I don’t think my partner had ever seen me cry like that in the three years we’ve been together. I wasn’t such a mess even when my step dad passed away six months earlier…
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We need to repeat these 5 truths purposefully, intentionally, and repetitively to ensure healthy relationships—both romantic and platonic...
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I was five when I fell in love. That instantaneous, all consuming, hard-to-breathe kind of love…
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You were always worthy, Until you made me unworthy, Emotional handcuffs clatter to the floor, Freedom…
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“They’re not even like real men, Ava! They’re all hairless under their shirts. Come on! It’s gross!” I remember zipping my lips shut right after my mate yipped that particularly distasteful ‘observation’ at me,..
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I’m sorry. I’ll miss you terribly. You look at me hurt…
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‘It’s cancer’… The doc said. And with that prognosis, I saw myself living back in Perth, Western Australia…
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Bahrain became one of the first countries in the Middle East to outlaw domestic violence. It is important to recognise that achievement, but also realise that there is more that communities can do. Ultimately, this is not a men’s issue or a women’s issue. It’s a community issue…
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Settling in takes time. Sometimes you need to take conscious steps before you really put down your roots. Ava, our Editor-In-Chief, shares few of her tricks to help you pre-settle after your next move.
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Hearts intertwined, cultures blended, held apart and concealed. Muted thoughts are voiced in random tongues.
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When he and I are close, it feels like our two flames enliven us. But fire is also a destructive force. From destruction comes creation, I think to myself…
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He kissed me goodnight. I went home and woke up the next morning thinking, ‘How could I have been such an idiot!?’ I really liked him but I guessed I just liked to self sabotage…
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The earliest memory of me actively rejecting romantic love was in middle school. When I saw how nosy, gossipy and intrusive all my classmates became if anyone decided to date, I resolved to not be a part of this experience altogether…
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On the silted shores of that Kashmiri lake from my childhood - my shoes slowly ruining in the slush of snow, mud and plum blossoms - I stood beside the houseboat we were staying in (which once hosted Henry Kissinger). That was the month Indira Gandhi was voted out and my whole family got stuck in India.
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With the whole of my heart (and my guts), I believe that your accent is fine just the way it is. There isn't really a right way to say 'tomato'. While you can't expect others to agree with your cultural identity, you can expect people to respect it...
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So, in the end, I’m alone. Although I have no intimate relationships with anybody at the moment, I find that I don’t particularly miss that. I’d rather be alone than settle for less than what I feel that I deserve...
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I find it hard to reach out to my colleagues. In my Australian culture, grief is largely seen as a private affair, punctuated by long and absent silences. Needing a national ‘Are you OK’ day says a lot about us, and how hard it is to have conversations outside socially acceptable boundaries...
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Oh, yes, and back in the 1990s your only choices in Japan were condoms and foaming spermicide strips that looked like breath freshener film. It was pretty grim…
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