I
The first poem, Dear Diary, tugged on my heartstrings and had me feeling like the girl in the book: misunderstood and being exiled for not fitting in. You would think that poem would be my favourite but, OH LORD, the next one was even better!

II
A Long Rhythmless Ode For Mama painted the world of a girl who regrets her mother's mistakes. It just plunges you into that tornado of emotions—sadness and regret for the life her mother lived, for her misdeeds.

III
Kisses was all heartbreak. Rewinding time, remembering the sweet before the sour crashed on you. Absolutely lovely.

IV
Now Èjídé Ọ̀kín takes a different turn, it’s our subject narrating her life in what to me is a drum beat, a masquerade dance because it starts slow and steady before picking up rhythm and eventually leaving you breathless from the dance, from the emotions, from the sheer anguish you can taste in I.R Adams’ carefully twisted words.

V
The Other Woman speaks of every hidden emotion, of everything we keep in our hearts, every single word we had to force back down our throats, of the stranger we would not recognise, the stranger that lives inside us.

VI
The Dance of Darkness, written without a single punctuation mark, feels like a fleeting memory, a gust of wind in a suffocating room. It's freeing.

VII
The mother lode of feels: The Search for Ilé Ẹrín. I never have enough words to express my love for this piece. It is simply phenomenal.

VIII
She Took My Breath Away. I have never experienced postpartum depression like I did in this piece. The turmoil in the mother is so palpable that I could hold her pain in my chest and her child in my arms whilst deciding whether to hate the child or not.

I

X
February 14th reminded me of every single time I met someone I know and I couldn't decide whether to speak and risk being shunned or to just shun them myself.

X
The Nocturnal Visitor speaks of fluctuating emotions, of living in the now, one-night stand lovers and the kind of stuff that makes me finish a book in a night.

XI
Ascend is the rise of a new dawn. I love it.