Dear Axel, 

My troubles stay burgeoning, growing untamed in my garden. I see cruelty where others do not. 

I saw a woman at the farmer’s market selling healing crystals and stones. Crystals and stones lynched and mutilated against their will into pleasing shapes. Our healing in exchange for the blood of the earth herself. 

I witnessed a rich man donating his surplus groceries to the homeless. For the cosmos, an act of charity. To me, an astounding display of the arrogance of a man who feeds his well-fed self first and aids those less fortunate only as an afterthought. 

And did you know,  sunflowers are allelopathic, injecting toxins into the soil and stifling other plants from blooming? How ignoble of the world to celebrate the beauty of a murderer. 

There is no good, without the bad and morals are only what we render them to be. 

Axel, it seems to me that every deed is tainted by an inescapable paradox- what may seem altruistic to one, spells doom for another. Such is the bitter irony of this world in which I run the risk of harming others by mere acts of self-preservation. 

The guilt of it all reverberates through my every vein. How does a woman proceed from here? 

I know this man

Abuse is his mother tongue

He lives in Lansdowne street, Calcutta,

is selectively dyslexic

so never expect him to read words like

‘Feminism’, ‘Equal rights’

He says he has read the Gita, Quran, Bible, everything,

In evenings, he degrades his emotionally intelligent wife,

at nights he tries to make love to her, she withdraws,

Next morning, he says she’s the kind of woman every man wants in his wife,

I know this man,

Abuse is his mother tongue

At the end of the year, it is important to reflect on everything that happened in order to enter the new year ready for success.

Through reflection we can relive our victories, learn from our losses & achieve improvement in any area of our lives we desire.

Here are 24 selected prompts to assist you in this journey:

But when he came he Blew out candles like he had something to prove

One by one he put us in the dark Our mother’s light snuck under the doorway and crept around the occasional birthday message when she was allowed to

He undressed love with violence We shared a house No longer a home

BloodPunk Dracula

[1400s France]

An assortment of Black vampires are searching the night for somebody. A small light flashes in the distance and gathers all of their attention. A short Black woman donned in dark armor is transforming her gold magic ring from a large circle of blood into two iron weapons in preparation for the impending battle. She’s Dracula, the vampires' target. Her red eyes and new curving gold swords gleam back at them. They rapidly march their way through the snow towards her.

The fastest one arrives in seconds, only to get quickly chopped up by Dracula's golden blades. Dracula's short swords begin magically sucking in streams of blood from the vampire's wounds, forcing the unfortunate vamp's body parts to stay levitated in the night air. These lifeless husks finally hit the ground as the next foolish vampire comes to strike Dracula.