I know the dopamine hit of buying something pretty makes you truly believe that this will be the magical item that changes everything, but sweetie please put your phone down and drink a glass of water. Don’t fall into the trap.

If I’m gay, how could I be possessed by this guy all the fucking time, bore my friends about him, drive myself insane with paranoia over whether he knew how I felt or not?

I don’t think many of us remember every toy we had as children, but I do know that we remember summers playing mermaids at the pool

Sobriety is not a hindrance to connection; rather, it serves as an invitation to engage in deeper and more meaningful discussions.

These are a few rituals that I — a neurodivergent, very attention-deficient book worm — have adopted to make reading an essential part of my daily life again.

This is my cry for help — and it’s aimed at cisgender people, and mums, and anyone who will listen.

Content warnings:
Transphobia; Violence; Sexual Assault; Rape; Hate Crime; Drug Use; PTSD

Crucially, this should be a positive exercise. It’s about stopping to take stock and listen to yourself about where you want to go next. It’s about moving into the new year with intention and focus, but not in a weird hustle culture kind of way.

It’s our favourite time of year, but the true spooks aren’t the witches and nice ghosties that walk among us – it’s the everyday hauntings that are the most terrifying of all.

From the Poly PhD Student to the Roommate, the editors look back at the characters they’ve dated in the pandemic.

I’ll be listening to Christmas carols, slowly unpacking our decorations, making gingerbread houses, and snuggling in with blankets and tea for those nights that start at 5:45 these days to watch some old classics for the next 8 weeks, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.

How many people have I written about in a spat of scorched earth? How many memories have I molded, twisted, and tossed into a work barely disguised to fit my narrative? Could I risk that, with my spouse, now, our little life together, my healing so important to me?

We eventually found ourselves back in Echo Park—broke, lonely, and gay. As these codependent friendships go, we were destined for an end, or a pause. Night after night of drinking and feeling like losers started to wear on us.

It was a day of peaceful but powerful protest and people power. In this author and protest attendee’s opinion, police escalation of hostility was what sparked the violent clashes as the sun went down.

Your virtual composite of who you want to be and what you are looking for, your “I’m a straight male, 30s, seeking short term and long term relationships and friends” — I see peppered with us, our memories.

I wouldn’t say that my love for Emily was romantic, but it was not entirely platonic either. I loved her like you can only love your childhood best friends. Some combination of sisterhood and friendship with a dash of romantic love tossed in to confuse things.

My crisis of writing and publishing stems from writing the darkest and most horrific parts of my life, without having processed them, publishing in soon-defunct literary magazines with little to no audience, and getting eight likes on social media as payment. Is this what I should turn myself inside out for?

Hinge in 2020 brought about a new degree of hysteria within me. And I was not alone. Our all-girls group chat has been alight with a near-constant stream of screenshots. Everything from poorly disguised ‘negging’ to full-blown sonnets. It has been a circus of delights and disasters.

Sitting in front of the GP, a large middle-aged man, I described my symptoms. As soon as I mentioned bleeding, he put his pen down and looked at me. “Are you on your period?” he asked. I’d already told him I wasn’t.

When my partner's aunt remarks to him how he would be much happier if he were thin – I stop her, look her dead in the eye and tell her that life is beautiful and he should enjoy it.