Steff Fleur

The traditional Iban view believed that this world ( dunya tu ) is separated from, and yet influenced by events and by actions of “beings” in a series of inter-connected unseen realms.

It’s funny how often the most revealing conversations happen with people who owe you nothing. In friendships and relationships, truth arrives cautiously, parceled out like rations. But a stranger in a velvet-draped room can hand you his whole life in twenty minutes.

I’m trying to see this version of me, the frozen one, the faded one, the one who went quiet, as someone who needed tending to, not scolding. Someone who was doing their best. Someone who just needed time, space, and maybe some grilled cheese sandwiches eaten under a weighted blanket.

On 15 September 1958 the colonial government inaugurated the Borneo Literature Bureau (Tawai 1997: 6).

there’s a strange ache that comes with outgrowing a version of your life that you worked hard to create. it’s the kind of feeling that doesn’t announce itself as grief but hums in the background of your daily routine — in the moments when the things that used to feel important start to feel hollow,

Love asks for heat. Left cold, we harden into our existing shape. But under the steady warmth of attention, we soften, loosen, and take on new form. The right gaze reorganises the self; you begin to recognise yourself more clearly in their eyes, and they in yours.

None of us are easy to be with. Not in the long run. Not when the days get quieter and the masks start slipping.