I read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath in my twenties, and no piece of writing has ever felt more like home to me. I don’t recall every minute detail of the story, but I remember how I felt reading it—the emotions it carried, and the emotions within myself that it seemed to recognize. I carried those feelings with me for years, but most of all, I carried you, Esther Greenwood, describing your descent into madness and your eventual ascension out of it. I saw myself in both versio

I’m performing my first solo in a pole dance showcase tomorrow, and later this month I’ll be celebrating my fourth pole anniversary. It feels surreal—to feel this alive now, knowing that only four years ago, when I found pole dancing, I was dead. I stumbled upon pole dancing during the darkest moment of my life, when I was a body detached from a soul, passively navigating the world, no longer participating in my own life. I had just come out of an abusive relationship—still

Last night I dreamt of a nameless woman— A lovely, unusual name formed on her lips but dissolved before it reached me. I woke with the feeling that I had almost known her—yet she remained a stranger. It was no coincidence, I think, that I had been rereading Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier when my dreams became haunted—fully submerged in its gothic atmosphere and quiet mystery. I have spent my evenings marvelling at du Maurier’s ability to carry me through time and space so seam