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How far can we follow beauty trends before we realise we’ve stopped thinking for ourselves and hollowed out our identity to acquiesce to whatever is making headlines and gaining views on social media?

Each person’s heart is its own archive layered with the sediments of romance, friendship, family, grief—but not everyone has quite the right words for it. 

Two poems about love and desire.

The music swells and I am elated that such raw sincerity has slipped into my life, leaving me blinded by the humanity we all share. I am feeling capable of being open and raw to the world around me. Then the video restarts.

In the tube station, I stumbled upon an advertisement for a “friend.”

For many immigrants (not all, because this is not a generalisable problem, but a specific one), conservatism is conviction. It is a safe rule book that has been instilled into them culturally, for many, dating back to the year in which they left their countries.

From a young age, I was taught that my passport was synonymous with my identity in the world. Alongside my name, handy phone numbers, and home addresses, I had branded this fact into my brain. Even in my sleep, I could recite my passport number and its expiry date in a heartbeat.

In London’s February, the sight of a snowdrop is not botanical - it is psychological.

Image courtesy of British Library Images Swayed by the motion of the Circle Line, I grip the overhead rail with one hand, an Oxford Classics paperback in the other. The modernist fragmentations of Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf become increasingly oblique as I read (without a hint of performativity), making me wish I had a hand free to scratch my head. My attention starts to wane. Opposite, a fellow commuter smiles warmly into a screen. A message from someone close, perhaps;

Photo courtesy of Victoria Orozco  via the Unsplash license As we turn our calendars to February, I’m sure many of us have in mind the much-loved (pun intended) Valentine's Day. If you’re reading this article, I’m assuming that you are a like-minded soul who is also going to be single on the 14th, with no lover in sight. Don’t worry, I’m right there with you. As a former Valentine's Day hater, every time February would creep up on me, I used to think: great – for the next th