The Cry of the Koklir | An Iban Ghost Story

Before I share my experiences, I’d want to clarify who the koklir is and what she represents in Iban belief.

People often think of the Iban people of Sarawak as headhunters, which is a part of our history, but it tends to eclipse the deeper aspects of who we are. However, our culture is not only based on headhunting. We have a strong spiritual connection to the natural world, which is rich in stories about spirits that live in rivers, lands, mountains, and dreams. Our folklores are alive with omens, taboos, and the spirits of people who have departed. Some spirits protect, some guide, and others, like the koklir, are said to return because something in their death was left unresolved.

In Iban culture, the koklir is one of the most feared spirits. She is believed to be the spirit of a woman who died during childbirth or shortly thereafter, specifically during the vulnerable bekindu period, which lasts for forty days of healing and recuperation. Her death is known as busong mati, or a spiritually unfortunate death, and her soul is considered to become jai (malevolent). Her soul is malevolent not because she did something wrong in life, but because her death was unnatural and tragic. Her spirit doesn’t cross over to the other side in peace; instead, it lingers behind, transformed by pain and grief.

As a ritual precaution, lime thorns (duri limau) are poked into her hands and soles before she is buried. It’s a symbolic act aimed at weakening her spirit and preventing her from becoming a koklir. Some people allege that her tongue is also pierced.

Then a prayer is being offered, asking her to rest and not come back to bother the living. But if the ritual isn’t done or if the death is really violent or sudden, people say she might still come back to haunt, seek, and punish.

The koklir is believed to target men. Most of the time, you can hear her presence through a chilling cry that starts out like a hen calling her chicks: “kok, kok, kok…” and ends with a piercing, terrifying “haiiiiii waiiiiii!” Before she attacked her victim, she would scream “kokliiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrr”. She sometimes takes the form of a beautiful woman, hiding her face with a tanggui serawong (woven sunhat) or a kubong leaf. Sometimes she manifests as an enturun, a shaggy, nocturnal bearcat with long claws. Some men say they’ve heard her voice in the jungle or by the river at night. Some people say they’ve seen her scratch at windows or doors with fingers that look like claws. The stories are shared quietly among men, usually late at night, and sometimes with fear or bravado.

I’ve never seen her. But would you believe me if I told you I heard her twice? And I remember it very well both times.

First Encounter

I was fourteen. It was the first day of the school break. Because my flight home was later that night, I was the only student left at the girls’ hostel at my boarding school. Everyone else had left throughout the day. The hostel was quiet and empty.

That morning, the warden told me to turn off the lights and close all the doors before I left. I said I would. After dinner, at about 6 PM, I took my bags outside and waited for my cousin to pick me up. It was getting dark already.

Before leaving, I went back in to do what I promised: turn off the lights and close the doors. I went up to the first floor, strolled through the empty corridor, and did what I had to do. The only sound was the rustling leaves blowing in the breeze. Everything else was still and quiet.

I heard something as I came back down, near the bathroom on the ground floor.

“Kok… kok… kok…”

It was soft and faint, exactly like a hen calling its chicks.

But this was a school compound. No nearby houses, no chickens. Just trees and a greenhouse. I stopped and listened again. I thought maybe I imagined it. I finished what I was doing and went back to the entrance. I stood there in the light of the corridor, looking out at the road. Everything else around me was dark.

Then, around 7PM, I heard it again.

“Kok… kok… kok… kok…”

It was slower and closer.

I felt chills and goosebumps all over my body. I was too scared to look around. I just kept my eyes on the road, expecting to see my cousin’s headlights. He came soon after that. I hastily loaded my bags into the car and drove away. I never looked back.

I didn’t see her, but I know what I heard. We believe that the koklir doesn’t harm girls or women because she only targets men. That gave me some comfort, but the sound stuck with me for years.

Second Encounter

I was still living in the same hostel a year later. I didn’t hear her voice this time, but I did hear something else. My bed was next to the door. Sometimes, I would wake up to a loud scratching sound at the door. I believed it was stray dogs trying to get in, so I went back to sleep.

However, I looked at the door one morning because I was curious. There were scratch marks, but they weren’t at the bottom where a dog could reach them. They were higher up, around chest height. That detail stuck with me. What kind of dog can scratch that high?

I didn’t say anything to anyone. I didn’t want to scare the others, especially the younger girls. But I remembered what the elders used to say: the koklir scratches at doors and windows with her long nails to find a way in.

After that, the scratching happened every now and then. I didn’t say anything about it until much later. I told the story years later in our WhatsApp group for former dormmates. I was surprised to learn that I wasn’t the only one. Others remembered the same sounds from the same door and that same feeling of unease. However, we all stayed quiet, but we were all scared.

Some people might not believe these stories. They can argue it’s merely animals, wind, imagination, or ridiculous stories from the natives. But I don’t think I made anything up since I know what I heard.

These encounters aren’t just stories about ghosts. She is a reminder of how deeply the Iban people see death and life as intertwined, how even grief has a place in our stories. As Iban people, we understand spiritual realms that involve death, grief, and the things that linger. The koklir is a reminder of women who died too young or too soon, often forgotten or feared, yet still searching for peace. She didn’t show herself to me. But I heard her cry and have never forgotten it, even after decades have passed.

I write about Iban culture, ancestral rituals, creative life, emotional truths, and the quiet transformations of love, motherhood, and identity. If this speaks to you, subscribe and journey with me.

The Ritual of Water | An Iban Ceremony for New Life

Last weekend, I found myself standing knee-deep in a shallow river in Janda Baik. The sunlight came through a canopy of trees above, casting soft streaks of light on the water’s surface. Everything felt quiet and peaceful. My kids splashed further upstream, and their laughter echoed off of rocks and trees. I stood still, closed my eyes, and let the water swirl around my legs as it flowed downstream.

It reminded me of the Iban traditional child-naming ritual. I’ve never seen it with my own eyes, but I learned about it from the elders and through reading. This ritual was held following the naming of the child and to formally “introduce” the child to the river.

In the Iban way of life, water is more than a physical element. A body of water like a river is also a spiritual space. It gives life, but it is also a source of danger. We wash with water from the river, and sometimes, when the water is clear, we even drink and cook with it. It carries our boats to other villages, fields, and faraway places. However, it’s also where crocodiles and other dangers live. No Iban has grown up without hearing stories about someone who was attacked at the river. When a child is born, we don’t just give them a bath. We also hold a ritual to beg the river not to harm them.

After the child is named, the bathing ritual begins. The night before the ceremony, the father informs the longhouse community of his intention. At dawn the next morning, the whole longhouse community walks to the river in a solemn procession. A flag bearer is at the front, and a man carrying a fowl follows him. Both of these men are chosen from among the respected elders. Two women walk behind them. One carries offerings and the other carries the child wrapped in handwoven pua kumbu. The rest follow, beating the gongs as they walk.

At the riverbank, the flag bearer cuts the water with a knife. The man with the fowl recites an invocation to call upon the spirits of water, earth, sky, and all the creatures that swim below the surface. He asks that the child be given good fortune, sharp vision, and safety. He calls the crocodile, the soft-shelled turtle, the barbus fish, the semah, and the tapah. He calls each one by name and tells them to regard this child as family, not food. He says,

“If this son or grandson of ours happens to capsize and sink while he is visiting, you are the only ones who can lift him up and keep him afloat.”

It is not a metaphor but a real request, born out of fear and hope.

After the invocation, the child is bathed and the fowl is slaughtered. People make noise on purpose, like banging gongs and laughing, to drown out any bad omens. If the child is a boy, one wing of the bird is tied to a spear with red ribbon. The wing is attached to a heddle rod if it’s a girl. A bamboo basket full of offerings is then hung from a leafy pole.

After that, they return to the longhouse and sprinkle the child with sacred water to get rid of bad omens. A feast is held and the gongs ring out to mark the ritual’s success. The child is now considered truly part of the community, and both the people and the river know it.

As I stood in that river at Janda Baik, I began to think about the rituals we’ve forgotten. What would it mean to reclaim a gesture like this, perhaps not literally but in spirit? The Ibans don’t all live in longhouses anymore. Some of us reside in cities and raise our kids as urbanites, but water still calls us. Maybe part of why we seek places like Janda Baik is because something in us still longs to make peace with the river. Rivers still take us places. They still give and take. And we too are still vulnerable to things we can’t see.

Maybe modern mothers need more moments like this, when they can recognize their fears, their prayers, and their desire to protect the people they love. We might not need to cut the water with a knife, but we can still offer a prayer, still whisper a blessing:

“We beseech you to confer on him fortune, give him sharp vision so that he will be fortunate, wealthy, and blessed with good health throughout his life.

We can still speak to the river, and certainly we can still be heard.

First Image of a Black Hole | Looking Across Space and Time

I didn’t think I would cry. I just wanted to watch something that wouldn’t make my grief worse. Netflix’s documentary, Black Holes: The Edge of All We Know, wasn’t supposed to make me weep, but I wept anyway.

I lost it as soon as they showed the first image of the M87 supermassive black hole. It was an image of a dark center with a faint, perfect ring of light around it. Such an event had never happened before in human history. We used to think we could never capture it. And there it was. It was no longer just theory or math but something we could finally see and name. We could finally see the unseeable.

It wasn’t the mind-blowing science that got to me. It was the time it took for that image to travel to our planet. That image of light we saw in 2019 had been traveling for 55 million years from the galaxy M87. We somehow caught that image of the black hole in this present day during our lifetime. What we were really looking at wasn’t just a region in space. We were looking back in time.

Image source

Fifty-five million years ago, the Earth was in the early Eocene epoch, which was only ten million years after the dinosaurs vanished. The world was warm and tropical and teeming with early mammals. Forests covered much of the land. Our distant ancestors were small, curious primates who climbed trees and lived on a planet that was still recovering from extinction.

The light began its journey somewhere in that ancient, lush world. It left behind a galaxy that no living thing on Earth had ever thought of. It traveled through the universe quietly and steadily as life on Earth evolved. It kept going as continents shifted, species came and went, and the first humans learned to make fire, sing songs, build temples, write poetry, and wage wars. It travelled throughout millions of millennia and arrived in our lifetimes.

That’s why I cried. So poetic. It felt like divine timing, a cosmic coincidence that was too beautiful to ignore. Our existence coincided with this fleeting moment in history, marking the completion of that ancient light’s journey. That all of human history had aligned so that we could see the shadow of something that used to only exist in the realms of physics and imagination. A black hole is a void so complete that it bends reality, and the light that falls into it makes it visible to our eyes.

I felt small and humbled. I reflected on the countless generations that had lived and died without ever being aware of this. In the grand scheme of things, our stories are extremely small. But somehow, we were able to look back 55 million years and make sense of what we saw. We were able to see it because we had the courage to ask questions and persistently search for answers.

I think that’s what stayed with me. It’s a reminder that certain things we perceive as unknowable may not remain so. Sometimes, truth comes like light from far away – slowly, patiently, and without fail. And sometimes, the edge of everything we know is just the beginning of the realm of future discoveries.

I wonder how many more truths are coming our way right now. If we keep looking, I wonder what other things that seem impossible we might discover.

Olivia Atelier offers printables, templates, and art designed to inspire reflection, healing, and creativity. Visit Olivia’s Atelier for more.

How I’ve Been Moving My Own Goalposts

I’ve been creating and publishing my work for years, but if you heard me talk about my work, you might think I’m just getting started.

I have this strange habit that I’ve noticed. I always add a “but” to every milestone I reach. In 2015, I published my first coloring book. This was long before the age of AI and before everyone was selling and publishing coloring books in droves. It was a huge feat for me because I had no formal education in design or tools but in the back of my mind it wasn’t a big deal because it wasn’t a novel. I sold my art and designs to people all over the world, but it was only a few dollars at a time. I’ve been interviewed on the radio a couple of times…but they were only thirty minutes. I’ve been featured in a local newspaper (The Star) and magazines…but no one remembers them. Even my poems, two in a local online literary journal and one in an international one, also come with the quiet disclaimer that they weren’t in a fancy, hardbound anthology.

In 2018, two of my paintings were part of a group show in Lisbon, Portugal. At the time, I remember feeling honored…and then telling myself right away that they were only small pieces, as if that made it less important that people on the other side of the world had chosen and seen them.

My brain seems to be programmed to move the goalposts as soon as I score. Everything I’ve done immediately ceases to count because it wasn’t more extensive, profitable, or longer. It’s a silent erasure of my own work and not humility. And the more I consider it, the more I see how deeply ingrained it is. Somewhere along the way, I learned that worth could only be measured in extremes.

I think part of it stems from the way accomplishments are often celebrated. Best-sellers, award winners, and overnight sensations often make the headlines. Seldom do the slower, more steady steps receive the same attention. Perhaps that’s why I find it difficult to appreciate them in my own life because they’re not the kind of victories that garner much attention.

But lately, I’ve been thinking about the new voices I’ve seen online. People who are just starting out as artists or writers are celebrating their first novel draft, drawing, or Etsy sale. Their happiness is apparent. They aren’t comparing it to some unseen standard. They don’t say “but” after their announcement. I wish I could have that. And it makes me think about how many moments I’ve missed out on because I wouldn’t let myself be proud for more than a second.

The truth is that my creative life has been full. I’ve brought six coloring books from idea to market, my art and designs have traveled farther than I have, I’ve done an overseas group show, I’ve done radio interviews, print features, and years of steady blogging. It exists not because I waited for permission, but because I put it out there into the world. And yet, I’ve been the one who’s diminishing it.

Here’s another truth: I don’t share links to my interviews or published works on my blog or social media. They carry my real identity, but I want to stay anonymous for now. That gives me a sense of freedom because I can create without worrying about my name, my face, or the expectations that come with them. Without that attachment, I can try new things, explore, and even fail without worrying that my whole identity is at stake.

The price of this mindset, both the anonymity and the constant moving of the goalposts, isn’t just emotional. It seeps into motivation. You never feel like you’ve arrived when you keep moving the finish line. And without that rest and a moment of acknowledgement and gratitude, the trip starts to feel like an endless uphill climb.

I’ve been trying to change this by creating tangible reminders that my work is real and worth noticing, not by forcing myself to feel proud. I made a “Proof Folder.” I keep screenshots of kind messages from readers or buyers, pictures of my books and art in the world, sales confirmations, and links to features or interviews. It’s an effort to fight against my habit of forgetting. I’ll open the folder on days when the “but” tries to take over. I’ll remind myself that the work was done, that it mattered, and that it still does.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to completely silence the voice in my head that says, ‘It’s not enough.’ But I might be able to learn to say something more true: It’s all mine. I made it and that counts.

Olivia Atelier offers printables, templates, and art designed to inspire reflection, healing, and creativity. Visit Olivia’s Atelier for more.

Remembering Zara | What Boarding School Taught Me About Bullying

When I first read about Zara Qairina, I felt a sharp, sick pull in my chest. She was only thirteen.

They said she fell from the third floor of her dorm. Some concluded she had taken her own life. Others claimed she was bullied, and that her body had been placed on the ground to make it appear like she jumped. Her family believed there was more than met the eye. They said she had told them, more than once, that she was being bullied. And now she’s gone.

It brought me back to my own boarding school days. Like Zara, I was thirteen when I stepped into that world. I was still twelve when I received an offer to pursue my secondary education at one of the top schools in Sarawak. My parents didn’t want me to go, but I insisted. For three months, they said no—then, finally, they relented.

Back then, we didn’t use the word “bullying.” The term we heard more often was “ragging,” usually carried out by seniors. I can’t speak for others, and certainly not for what boys experienced, but I can tell you what I went through.

Had I ever been bullied? Yes. But I didn’t recognise it as bullying at the time. I wasn’t a timid student, though I was quiet. I always pushed back. So I didn’t label those moments as something serious. But they were.

The first time I was bullied was in Form 2, when I was fourteen. The girl who targeted me was also in Form 2 but from another class. She was one of the prettiest girls that year. I hadn’t paid much attention to her because I mostly kept to myself and my circle of friends.

We were both in PBSM (Red Cross, or Red Crescent in Malaysia). That year, there was a three-day camping event, and by chance, I ended up in the same group as a senior—a Form 4 boy she had a crush on. I didn’t think much of it. He was just another teammate. However, she was consumed with jealousy. She began spreading rumours about me and told others to avoid me. One by one, people pulled away. I didn’t notice at first, but eventually, it became clear. My belongings were misplaced. My cupboard was ransacked. I suspected someone had even read my diary.

Friends gave subtle hints, and my instincts pointed to her. They had proof, but none of them dared to confront her. Meanwhile, she continued to pursue the boy; however, it was unsuccessful. Then, one day, as quickly as it started, the bullying stopped. She became friendly again. I never asked why. Maybe she realised the boy was never going to be hers, or maybe she just grew tired. Eventually, we became friends throughout the school years. And guess what? We’re still in touch to this day. And yes, I forgave her.

The second time it happened, I was in Form 4. This time, it came from the boys in my class. They bullied everyone, and I was no exception. They called me names—some rude, some degrading. I was upset, of course. But again, I fought back. I reported them to the disciplinary teacher, and they were punished. The bullying stopped. And funny enough, we all became friends. Some of them now hold director-level positions in the public and private sectors. One of the most notorious is now a respectable police officer. I sometimes wonder if he remembers any of those incidents, but I’ve never bothered to ask.

So how did all of this affect me?

It taught me that the world can be a cruel place. It taught me that not everyone is your friend. It taught me that bullies often prey on the quiet ones. And it taught me that sometimes, the only way out is to speak up and push back.

I believe Zara was a brave girl, and I believe she fought back too. But the system failed her. Somewhere along the way, someone didn’t listen and take her seriously. And now, we are left with heartbreak and unanswered questions.

Many Malaysians are shaken by her death. The police are still investigating. Until the investigation concludes and all suspects are questioned, everything remains speculation. But whatever the outcome, I hope the truth surfaces and justice is served.

And I hope we learn something.

We cannot romanticize boarding schools as character-building institutions while ignoring the rot beneath. We cannot continue to let children suffer in silence because “that’s how it’s always been.” That was my mentality back then. I thought ragging was normal, just a part and parcel of school life. All I had to do was endure it and be courageous enough to fight back.

But I was wrong. Bullying, no matter the form—is never normal. It is cruel, and it should be recognized as a crime under any law.

We have to be better. Not just for Zara, but for the next thirteen-year-old girls or boys who still believe they are safe.

Olivia Atelier offers printables, templates, and art designed to inspire reflection, healing, and creativity. Visit Olivia’s Atelier for more.

When the Car Broke Down, So Did I | But Here’s What I Learned

The car broke down today. Again.

It’s my husband’s car, and this would be the third time this year. We’ve brought it to different workshops, different mechanics, each one poking around and shrugging like it’s just one of those ghosts in the machine. But today, the mechanics finally identified the issues: spark plugs, cooling gasket, weak battery, frayed cables, a clogged pipe, and a radiator that desperately needs cleaning.

RM2,000. That’s the estimate. We have savings, sure, but can we replenish that money in time? That question alone pulled me into a mental spiral I’ve come to know too well. A slow, heavy dread that swirls up in the pit of your stomach. But I caught myself. I reminded myself I had two choices: let that worry snowball and bury me, or breathe, look at the situation for what it is, and figure out what I can do.

We still need to fix the car and to keep living. And worrying, as familiar as it is, won’t do the fixing for me. What weighs heavier than the cost, though, is the guilt. There’s this stubborn voice inside whispering that I’m not doing enough. It keeps insisting I should be contributing more consistently. My husband works full-time, and I write, and I have small online hustles. Sometimes they bring in decent money but sometimes they don’t. But I squirrel away every ringgit I earn. And over the years, those small savings have paid for medical bills, groceries, furniture, school supplies, and, of course, rainy days that came without warning.

When I zoom out, I see that I’ve contributed steadily throughout the years. And yet, the guilt persists. Because we live in a world that ties a person’s worth to the size of their paycheck. Is that the only currency that matters? But what about everything else?

What about the sleepless nights, the emotional labor, the struggles of parenting and managing a household, especially when they are rarely acknowledged? What about the unpaid hours spent raising children into kind, curious humans? What about those people who hold things together behind the scenes? However, I’ve learned, slowly, not to compare. I tried not to look at working mothers and feel small. I make an intentional effort not to pit stay-at-home and working women against each other. We each make trade-offs and we all carry invisible costs. I’ve stopped wasting energy trying to measure myself against others. I’d rather pour that energy into things that feed my soul, like writing and making art.

Still, the financial anxiety is real. We’ve been living frugally for years. And yet, one broken part in a car can shake the balance. It’s a common story. Everywhere I look, people are stretched thin, in Malaysia or elsewhere around the world. Even in countries like the U.S., I read about 80-year-olds still working because they can’t afford not to. That article haunted me.

It reminded me how fragile things can be, how illness, aging, or a single emergency can drain years of careful saving. And it made me think, what kind of life do I want to build? What kind of resilience do I want to have? I don’t want to live in fear. So I’m choosing to stay patient, calm, and clear. I’m choosing to meet this setback with grace, even when it feels unfair. I tell myself this: take a deep breath. Don’t panic. Worry adds nothing. It just takes and drains. And right now, I need all my strength to stay grounded and keep creating and contributing, not just financially, but emotionally and meaningfully.

If you’re reading this in the middle of your own breakdown, whether mechanical or emotional, I want you to know: you’re not alone. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed and cry. It’s okay to spiral too. I did that often but when the tears dry, try again. If you’re like me, you have people who are depending on you for survival, and no matter how unfair it might sound, we have to keep going even when we feel like falling apart.

Sometimes, a broken car teaches you more than a working one ever could. It reminds you of what you’re capable of. And if you’re still standing after everything life has asked of you, then maybe you’re not broken at all. You’re probably just in the middle of building something unshakable.

Olivia Atelier offers printables, templates, and art designed to inspire reflection, healing, and creativity. Visit Olivia’s Atelier for more.

Why Andrea Gibson’s Death Hit Me Harder Than Our Movie K-Drama

This past week was hard because Andrea Gibson died, and I’m still trying to figure out what that means. I never met them, but their death feels strangely personal to me. But if you’ve read Andrea’s poems, you know exactly why. Andrea’s poems aren’t just pretty words but they are pieces of themselves they left behind. They are bloody, honest, and vulnerable.

I also watched Our Movie, a Korean drama about the slow, painful journey of dying and saying goodbye, that same week. The themes of death, memory, and love all fit together, but my response to each couldn’t have been more different.

Our Movie is exceptional. The cinematography is soft and dreamy. The acting is gentle, the soundtrack minimal. Namkoong Min plays Lee Je-ha, a quiet man who watches the woman he loves, Daeum (played by Jeon Yeo-been), die of a rare, incurable disease. She is calm, joyful, and completely at peace with dying. And he is steady, restrained, and almost stoic in the way he grieves. It’s not a bad drama; in fact, many people praise it for the gut-wrenching themes of death, dying, and hope. But for someone like me, who demands emotional rawness, it made me feel underfed.

I know the character choices were intentional. Daeum doesn’t fight her death because she is content and fulfilled. She has lived, loved, and achieved her dreams. She got what she wanted. Je-ha doesn’t break down or scream when he thinks of her. His grief is not outward but you still see it in his eyes and gestures. You see the grief, but you don’t feel it.

And maybe the show makers wanted to show us that some losses are quiet. Some people don’t break when they’re hurting. They simply retreat, bend inwards, and go still. But for me, that restraint made it hard to connect. I was waiting for something to break open. I wanted Je-ha to scream, cry, or do something that would show me how much Daeum meant to him besides memory flashbacks and stares into space. Oh, he did cry but somehow I couldn’t connect with the way he grieves.

The drama wasn’t wrong. It’s just that I couldn’t connect with it emotionally. And that made me think of Andrea.

Andrea Gibson didn’t whisper about death. They roared and cried on stage. They made you feel uncomfortable because their truths were so intimate. Their words weren’t polished or pretty; they were rough with honesty. Andrea’s poems made you feel seen. And that’s why so many people are mourning their passing.

Andrea wasn’t afraid of being vulnerable and real. They weren’t afraid of naming the pain, sitting with it, and saying, “You’re not alone in this mess because I’m here too.”

And maybe that’s why their death feels more real than a fictional one. Andrea was there for us in the kind of grief that makes you feel like your heart is breaking and your voice is shaking, and it reminds you that this life is fragile, but it’s also worth feeling everything for.

I realized this week that I don’t just want beauty in art. I want pain and emotional bruises. I want to feel the grief and not just admire it from a safe distance. And I’m not ashamed of that anymore.

It’s not selfish to want art that speaks your emotional language. Our Movie was very well made but I think it’s okay to say that it didn’t satisfy me on the level that I had hoped for. The way I live—intensely, with longing, and an endless desire for truth—shapes my expectations. So when something falls short of that, I notice. And I’ve learned to be honest about it.

Maybe that’s the reflection for this week. This is not a review or critique. It’s just a simple truth that some stories observe grief and others enter it with you. And this week, Andrea Gibson reminded me that I will always need the latter.

I’m grateful for the reminder. And I hope that when my time comes, I’ve written even a little bit as honestly as Andrea did.

Rest gently, Andrea. And thank you for the gift of your words.

I leave this excerpt from Andrea’s poem, Love Letter From the Afterlife. You can read the complete poem on their Substack. Mind you, the imagery in this poem is breathtaking.

“My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined.”

And this poem, When Death Comes to Visit was written by Andrea years ago and released posthumously by their wife, Meg, today (25 July 2025).

Olivia Atelier offers printables, templates, and art designed to inspire reflection, healing, and creativity. Visit Olivia’s Atelier for more.

Things I Was Told Not to Say (But I’m Saying Them Anyway)

Like everyone else, I was raised to be polite, to lower my gaze, and to keep my mouth shut before it bleeds arrogance or truth. But truth doesn’t always need to wait for permission and I’m done looking for it.

This is a list of things I was told not to say because they are deemed shocking and inappropriate. But I’m saying them anyway, because being silent isn’t always safe. It was a slow suffocation and death.

I was told not to say:

“I’m tired of being the emotional one, the one who feels things.”

But I am. It’s draining carrying the burden of my own feelings and everyone else’s. You say I’m too touchy. I say you need to be more sensitive.

“Sometimes I don’t want to be a mother.”

It doesn’t mean I don’t love my children. It means I want to disappear sometimes. To be free of endless burdens and responsibilities. I want to just be me without being attached to roles and expectations, even just for a while. Just long enough to find myself again.

“Marriage is lonely.”

Yes, even the good ones. Especially the good ones; when you’ve been together long enough, you know each other too much there are barely any surprises anymore.

“I still think about the one who left.”

No, I don’t want him back. But he lives in the hallways of my memory, like when I stop to think about certain songs or street names or places. That’s not being unfaithful. It’s my memory and the only way to forget it is if I lost my memories to dementia or brain damage. Otherwise the memory remains. And I’m allowed to carry it.

“I don’t want to go to this church anymore.”

I believe in God. But I don’t believe in being controlled and being silenced. I don’t want to pretend everything’s fine when my spirit is clearly not. I’m not giving up on faith; I’m moving toward the truth.

“I feel ugly on some days.”

No amount of affirmations makes it disappear. There are days when I can’t stand my body. Some days I don’t even notice it at all. Both truths exist.

“I envy women who get to choose their identity.”

Because I never did. I was born into roles before I could choose which ones I liked. Wife and mother. Good girl. Christian. I played every one of them. But now I want to rewrite the script where the real me can finally be set free.

“I don’t want to be grateful all the time.”

Gratitude is holy. But forced gratitude is performance. I don’t owe anyone a smile when I’m breaking inside. I can be grateful and grieving at the same time.

“I want more.”

More silence. More passion. More space to create without guilt. More people who see me without needing me to explain myself. I want more than I was told I should ask for.

And yes, sometimes I want to be desired and not just needed. There’s a difference. And I feel it every time I’m touched with obligation instead of longing.

I was told not to say all of this. They are taboo and a good Christian woman, a wife and a mother, shouldn’t entertain these sinful thoughts.

I was told to play it safe. To keep my life neat, soft, godly. I was told not to stumble others in their faith.

But truth isn’t always soft. Truth can hurt and burn sometimes. And I’d rather burn than spend another decade in silence.

Call me whatever you want. A premenopausal woman in the heat of a midlife crisis. A delusional Christian woman being lured by the devil. These are some of my truths and I’ll not stop writing about them and shrink myself for others’s comfort. I’m so done with being prim and proper and always saying the right things all the time. I’m done with lying. It’s time for me to proclaim my truths and make them known to others.

The Things That Undid Me

I cooked my love down to tar,
a black syrup in the bottom of the pot.
It taste like a lie
but I said nothing.
I was raised to chew my
tongue for supper.

I sewn myself into the good wife’s dress,
blessed and above reproach,
but I swallowed my own teeth
like communion wafers.

My children pressed their ears to my palms
and heard singing.
But some nights,
my fingers were fists
full of burnt letters.
I’m no witch,
only a woman
who learned too late
that silence is murder.

The pastor preached be pure.
But I loved the smell of rain
in my dirty hair,
my body wanting
without shame.

God, forgive me–
not for sinning
but for the way I loved it:
the unwashed sheets,
the stains on the hymns,
the animal in me
that refused to kneel.

I’m not sorry for the smoke,
or the fire I’ve become.
I’m sorry it took me
this long to strike the match.

Olivia Atelier offers printables, templates, and art designed to inspire reflection, healing, and creativity. Visit Olivia’s Atelier for more.

The Other Me | The Woman Behind the Poem

When I wrote the poem “The Other Me,” I wasn’t trying to sound bold or dramatic. I was just being honest by telling my truth.

People often assume they know me. They see a woman who is quiet. A wife. A mom. A Christian. Someone who shows up, serves, nods politely, and doesn’t cause trouble or controversy. I’m familiar with this image because I’ve lived inside it for most of my adult life. It’s not that it’s wrong. It’s just incomplete.

There has always been a deeper current under the surface. Beneath all that facade of neatness, there is someone who asks harder questions or feels hurt when silenced. There is someone that remembers who I was before all the roles and expectations started to pile up on me.

“The Other Me” is not a fictional character. She is a real person who has always been by my side. I put her away, hidden, so that I could make room for acceptance, safety, and community. In religious communities, women are often praised for being quiet, gentle, and obedient. Where doubt must be neatly dressed in submission, and discomfort is treated like rebellion.

The poem came from the grief of hiding and of living a half-truth because the whole truth felt like too much.

I was taught to be agreeable as a child or to be well-liked. I learned that being difficult was the same as being rejected. That if you had questions, you lacked faith. That wanting more, like more closeness, more freedom, and more honesty, was wrong or selfish.

So I stayed small. I stayed quiet. I played the role so well I almost forgot I was acting. But staying quiet has a price.

When you’re around people who only know the version of you that makes them comfortable, a certain kind of loneliness grows. They love that safe version of you and they honor her because she embodies the values they approved. But you start to wonder if they would still love you if you said something out of character. What if I stopped editing myself for the sake of their comfort? What if I let the fire show?

And then one day you write a poem.

You write it because you have things you want to say but can’t. Your body remembers what your mind tries to bury. Because there is a woman inside you who is sick of bending over backwards to meet other people’s expectations.

You don’t even know if you’ll share it when you write it. But that is beside the point because the truth is you need to see this woman and say to her, “I haven’t forgotten you.”

“The Other Me” is about the version of myself that doesn’t fit into polite spaces. She is the one who laughs too loudly, writes about God and desire in the same line, and asks questions about things she was told not to touch. She loves deeply but won’t let anyone else control her.

In the past, I was scared of her.

But now I know she isn’t a threat. She isn’t being defiant just to be dramatic. She is just being honest. She is the version of me that lived and survived. And I owe her more than just silence.

When I say I feel alone sometimes, I mean it in a specific way. I don’t mean that I don’t have anyone around me. What I mean is that I don’t have a place that feels like home and where I belong. I don’t quite fit in with the local creative community, where the type of poetry that gets attention is usually light, easy to read, and trendy. I write differently. I write deeply. And sometimes, that depth becomes a wall between me and the world I want to reach.

At the same time, the people who connect with my work often live far away. They have different cultures, different worldviews. We connect through words, but we live in different worlds. That, too, feels like a dislocation.

But still, I write.

Because this is how I heal, and this is how I remember. This is how I get back the parts of myself that I’ve tried to hide for a long time.

The Other Me is not a rebellion. It is a way for me to return to the version of me that I’ve neglected.

And maybe, just maybe, if I keep writing her into existence, someone else out there who also feels out of place, half-formed, and unseen, will recognize themselves in my words. And that recognition will feel like belonging.

We might not need to fit in to be complete. Maybe we just need to be honest.

And that is what this poem gave me. A little more honesty. A little more light. A little more room to breathe.

And to the version of me that is still hiding: I see you. We’re coming home.

Note: This poem is not published yet, but you can read a short excerpt on my Threads post.

Olivia Atelier offers printables, templates, and art designed to inspire reflection, healing, and creativity. Visit Olivia’s Atelier for more.

After Andrea | A Tribute to Andrea Gibson

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When Andrea Gibson left this world, they didn’t vanish. They simply changed form.

That’s what I believe. What I’ve always believed. That death isn’t the end but a transformation. It’s a reassembly of light, soul, and memory. It becomes energy that lingers in the folds of pillows, in dog-eared pages, in the sound of your laughter.

Andrea said it best in one of their final gifts to the world: “Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away.”

I read those words with a lump in my throat, but not because I was grieving. They reminded me of something I wrote months ago, not knowing then how it would one day connect me to someone I admired from afar.

So when we grieve for an unbearable loss and feel the crushing weight of absence, perhaps we can take comfort in knowing that nothing is ever truly gone.

The ones we miss exist in a different form now. They are scattered across the cosmos, carried in rays of sunshine, drifting in the gentle breeze. The photons that once danced across their skin continue their journey through space. Their laughter still lingers around us, waiting to be felt by those who remember.

If we explain death by physics alone, the conservation of energy means that when we die, our energy disperses into heat, into the environment, and into the people we loved. ~ Excerpt from my blog: The Physics of Goodbye

Andrea’s poems weren’t just poems; they were silent revolts against erasure and the lie that pain and beauty must live apart.

And maybe that’s what we leave behind: words and permission. Especially permission. Permission to grief and cry. To be angry. To acknowledge love out loud. To die beautifully. To stay, even after.

After Andrea

I want to call you by the sound your bones made when they fell into the light. I want to call you return instead of loss, to pin your spirit to my wall like the last goodnight of a sunbeam. You are not gone. You are still here. You are a new verb. You breathe through my ribcage at midnight when I forget my name and remember yours. Your echoes make me who I am. You are the ghost of the lamp turning on by itself, the sudden music when no one’s home. What trick of physics lets a soul remain when the body collapses? What cruel grace? Andrea, I never touched your hands, but I have held your sorrow, your laughter, your thunder, your holy queerness. I carry it now. In me, and in everyone who heard your voice before they knew you. Thank you for the light. Thank you for the absence that still feels full. Thank you for dying like a poet; all metaphor, without end.

Olivia Atelier offers printables, templates, and art designed to inspire reflection, healing, and creativity. Visit Olivia’s Atelier for more.