Who are you when nobody’s watching?

Melt me

I do not ask for your blessing,

nor your forgiveness.

Your faith is a cage,

a straitjacket sewn with your expectations.

I stand here, excommunicated for my sins,

because I chose to live unchained.

I do not wear the dress you picked for me,

I do not bow to the rules of a heaven that cannot see me.

If being called a sinner is the price of being true,

then I pay it with pride.

My sin is desiring you until it hurts,

letting go without fear,

burning beneath the weight of my own hunger.

The devil behind the mask of a man

has awakened me,

taught me to look into the abyss within,

to no longer fear the dark that burns and breathes.

And every time he is near,

the fire rises in me,

a flame that devours shame,

that shatters fear,

that screams freedom,

the freedom to be myself, slave and queen all at once.

And if the world dares to call me excommunication,

I answer with a smile of fire,

knowing there is no sweeter hell than the one I choose with him.

No paradise more bitter than a life dimmed without his command.

So yes,

I am the devil dressed as an angel.

I am his temptation and his surrender.

I am the end and the beginning

of everything he never dared to want.

Come with me,

guide my submission,

or stay in your prison,

Reflected pain

Every time you look at a woman and feel “less” 

Less beautiful.

Less young.

Less accomplished.

Less sexy.

It’s not envy.

It’s a wound, a very fine crack that says a lot. 

A deep, ancient wound, hidden under layers of unspoken words and avoided glances.

Envy is a human feeling like all other emotions we experience, and it must be heard, it has a function!

Let’s learn to transform this feeling in a constructive way.

We’ve been taught to look at ourselves through the eyes of others, not our own.

To measure our worth with a dirty mirror, a distorted reflection of constant comparisons.

A mirror that doesn’t reflect our essence, but only the competition that was imposed on us.

When you’re measuring yourself against another woman, it’s not rivalry.

It’s not a threat.

It’s a mirror of what we were often forbidden to be.

If you judge because she is free, maybe it’s because you don’t feel free.

If you envy her because she dares, maybe it’s because you were not allowed to.

If her voice bothers you, maybe it’s because yours has been silenced for too long.

Seen from this perspective, it all becomes personal.

It’s not hatred.

It’s reflected pain.

A pain that has settled into our bodies, our fears, our insecurities.

And it’s not our fault,

it becomes our fault only when we become aware of this reality and do nothing to change it.

It’s the legacy of a society that has always feared the power of united women.

They pitted us against each other, not to create strength, but to extinguish it.

To divide our power, fragment it, make it easier to control.

The union of many women can be frightening, because in that union lies enormous power.

There is the strength of those who have chosen not to compete anymore, but to rise together.

We weren’t born to look at each other with suspicion.

We were born to recognize each other, to take each other by the hand, to lift each other up.

True liberation begins when we turn off judgment,

when we stop measuring our value based on others,

and begin to see each other as allies and not as rivals.

Because our beauty, our strength, our femininity, never run out when shared.

But what I’m talking about is not chasing toxic femininity,

the kind that pushes you to compare and compete with another woman to feel “enough.”

It’s not that endless search for validation, for glances, for approval.

I’m talking about something constructive.

I’m talking about that kind of femininity you can admire in another woman,

that strength you can learn from her, without feeling threatened, without feeling less.

Because true femininity is not a trophy to win.

It’s not a beauty contest, or a race in career or popularity, these are banal clichés from a small-town mindset.

It’s a path of personal and collective growth, made of authenticity, respect, and care.

Toxic femininity is when:

• A woman harshly criticizes another woman’s appearance or choices to feel superior.

• Gossip is spread and rivalries are built based on envy and fear.

• The “divide and conquer” strategy is enacted among friends or colleagues, with subtle comments that wound but are never said openly.

• One tries to please others, especially men, at the expense of oneself.

Healthy femininity is when:

• You can look at another woman and say “Wow, I can learn something from her” without feeling diminished.

• You celebrate each other’s successes without fear that it reduces your own value.

• You support one another through hardships, creating real and tangible support networks.

• You respect each other’s life choices, even if they differ from your own.

This femininity  the real one  can transform competition into collaboration,

fear into courage,

judgment into curiosity.

It’s the one that makes you say:

“I’m happy for her, because her light doesn’t dim mine it illuminates it.”

The crucial point lies exactly here: not feeling inferior or superior to others.

The society we live in is a system much bigger than us, bigger than any individual man or woman.

It’s not about blaming all men, because there are good men, men who fight by our side, who support and defend women every day.

The problem is the patriarchy, an ancient and deep-rooted structure that has shaped society in a way to maintain a certain balance of power.

A system that, often without intending to, taught us to see each other as rivals instead of allies.

It’s not about men versus women.

It’s about a system that, in order to survive, needs to divide us, make us doubt each other, keep us apart.

That’s why it’s important to look beyond the face of individual people and see the bigger picture.

Like when you go to a museum, if you only look at the frame of a painting, you will never understand the true essence of every detail of the artwork. You have to get closer.

Because only in this way can we stop being pawns in this game and become the true protagonists of our story, united.

Once we understand this, we can choose to build something new.

A place where solidarity is not an exception but the norm,

where men and women collaborate, support each other, and grow together,

freeing themselves from old patterns and opening the way to a more just and human future.

Female solidarity is not a fantasy or a distant ideal,

but a daily practice we can bring into our lives but this is up to us.

The Rose and the Cactus

In a quiet garden,

where light gently filtered through the leaves,

the gardener planted a cactus

next to the Rose spiny and silent.

The Rose watched the Cactus,

and with an open heart, offered it water every day,

believing that what made her bloom

would nourish him too.

Then something rare happened.

The Cactus spoke.

“Rose… you have loved me as you know how to love.

But love is not just giving:

it is also listening to yourself.”

The Rose looked at him, surprised.

“I only wanted your good…”

she whispered, voice trembling like a leaf.

“I know,” said the Cactus.

“But the good of another is not always yours.

You gave me what makes you bloom,

without asking if it was what nourished me.

And in this, you lost yourself.”

“Then did I love you wrong?”

The Cactus smiled,

in his still and true way.

“No.

You loved sincerely.

But you forgot to love yourself as well.

To water your own roots,

before reaching out to mine.”

The Rose felt a new sap rise within her heart.

It was not pain.

It was awareness.

“You have taught me that the line between love and loss of self is thin.

That to truly love,

we must remain whole.”

And the Cactus, at peace,

closed his eyes.

Perhaps for the last time.

Perhaps to be reborn elsewhere.

Seasons passed,

and the gardener returned with new life:

another cactus, small and different,

planted neither too close nor too far from the Rose.

This time the Rose did not rush with her water,

but watched, gave space,

learned to bloom within, in her own time.

And one morning,

the new Cactus blossomed,

fragile, different, true.

The Rose smiled,

happy to love,

Flying Away from You

Butterflies are beautiful creatures.

Delicate, light, free.

But it doesn’t take much to ruin them:

touch their wings too roughly,

and they can no longer fly.

I was like that.

A butterfly, right in the middle of my awakening.

I had just learned to love my freedom,

to spread my wings,

to choose the sky.

And then you arrived.

Too tired to fly,

too envious to let me go.

And so, I stopped.

I landed exactly where I shouldn’t have:

in your web.

A trap made of sweet words and half-truths.

You disguised yourself as shelter,

while slowly spinning your threads around me.

Your lies were invisible threads,

your manipulations tight knots around my mind.

You made me doubt myself.

You made me believe I was the unstable one,

too much, too emotional, wrong.

That my sensitivity was a flaw.

That my affection was a burden.

That my loneliness was my fault.

And all the while, you laughed

as I lost pieces of myself.

You turned me against the people I loved,

just to feel important.

You played with emotions,

with people,

as if they were yours to own.

You collected attention, admiration

and even that photo.

The one you still keep,

like a trophy.

A photo of me.

Not as a symbol of something beautiful,

but as proof that you’d done it

you’d caught me.

Because you didn’t want love.

You wanted power.

And I, in that moment,

was too hurt to see it.

But now, my wings aren’t broken anymore.

I’ve learned how to set myself free.

I’ve learned that love doesn’t trap you,

doesn’t confuse you,

doesn’t drain you.

I tore down your web, thread by thread.

I unlearned your rules.

And I started to fly again.

“Rules exist to be broken in order to grow,” you once wrote.

And so I did.

Only this time,

The Silent War

The Circle

In plane geometry, a circle is the region bounded by a circumference that is, the infinite set of points that are no farther than a fixed distance, called the radius, from a point called the center.

In life, the circle represents a part of our brain, bounded by a circumference: the infinite set of thoughts revolving around a point, the center, that rational part of the mind not too far from reality.

— Can someone pass me the eraser?

The pencil marks are too dark; the lines are still visible.

Let's draw the circle again.

— Can someone pass me the chalkboard eraser?

The white chalk is too visible.

Let's draw the circle again.

— Can someone pass me the scissors?

The thread won’t cut.

Let's draw the circle again.

Round and round it goes. The circle remains etched in my mind.

In front of a mirror, tears brush my face, my eyelids slightly swollen. The circle occupies all the space inside my mind. I lose reason; I can no longer think clearly.

And the diameter? I might call all of this “obsession.”

A wise man once said: “Obsession serves to avoid perceiving the void.”

I become aware and ask myself: the void… if I think about it, is the circle empty?

A black hole, for example, could be defined as a circle: it swallows everything, you can’t see it with the naked eye, but it exists.

Underwater

Body and soul are two concepts that cannot be separated. They are connected like yin and yang. Close your eyes for a moment and imagine your body as the surface of an ocean: sometimes calm, sometimes stormy, but always shining in all its beauty. The soul is the beating heart of the ocean. It's dark, nothing can be seen, it's intimidating. You know very well that only by reaching the bottom will you truly come to know yourself.

Not everyone has the courage to dive in, with only a thread of breath. Fear takes your breath away. But now you’re in. You start to perceive, through your eyes, a different world. Funny: outside the water, you seemed blind, but now everything appears clearer. Letting yourself be carried by the flow of the water calms all those tangled thoughts. Accepting your emotions… I realize, at some point, that I have no control over my body. It leaves me defenseless.

The deeper I go into the waters, the shorter my breath becomes. It’s as if I want to go back, to savor one last breath, but it's too late. Going back to everything that once made me feel safe… I realize now that the only choice is to move forward. I hold my breath for as long as I can. I don’t listen to prejudices, or to the eyes watching me. After all, who would have the courage to look inside themselves? Only the bold would dive in. But the curiosity is too strong: getting to know yourself has become a priority.

It might take days, months, or years to discover the truth. But one thing must be said: what courage. We dove in before the others, before they too realized they weren’t so different after all.

Here I am. I perceive myself. I feel the suffering, the tremors of something that awakened me. I almost regret the choice I made, but in the end, all of this is accepted over time. We are not automatons. When you’ve touched the bottom with one hand and rise quickly to gasp for air above the water, you won’t even have fully realized all that you’ve gone through.