safer. stronger. simply better.

i was burning for a safe space.

You see, I like writing. It is a way to channel my soul and allow it to flow the way it wants. I have been doing that since the sixth grade. Pen, paper, and passion. The people around me have watched me grow like that.
They were silly poems. Rhyming words put together like building blocks. Brick by brick. Feeling by feeling. But I needed a place to build without someone knocking it down. Without someone shaming my bricks. And hence it came. the safe space 7.

It was so I could express myself without the fear that the person in front of me would tear that piece of paper, like the ink on it did, to my heart. It was like summoning something without the consequences of it.

if you ask me about the name, its obvious. But the number 7? it came by itself while i was finding a domain. by destiny, i was only able to upload 7 posts before things went the way they did.

I knocked myself out. to a lot of people, my poems did not make sense. that was the point. Poetry is something so mystically mysterious. I was writing the way the veins in me were tangled. unpredictable but inevitable.

Soon I had an Instagram account, and very quickly an audience too. I was passing out chits with the link and username handwritten because that is how it felt personal. That is why it felt real.

I wanted to expand it. I wanted the support of my surroundings, my school. I approached teachers. My idea was repeatedly postponed. And then it was denied. Maybe the martyrdom of mental health was a war only i felt worthy enough of fighting.

I still had not given up. I continued posting.

My audience was a spectrum. While some teacher was telling me it was the worst blog they had ever read with intentions to humiliate, some classmates told me that it really changed their perspective of life. And that made my vision even clearer.
That was why this mattered enough to the youth I lived alongside, not the ones I was supposed to look up to.

i started learning a lot of things to promote it. Social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, Facebook ads, and more. It surely gave me hands-on experience. Truly.

Although my guard was still up, I needed money to continue posting on the website. It is a ransom if you ask me. It felt unfair why I had to pay money to enlighten minds. I mean, what else do you want from a ninth grader trying to make a difference?

They simply locked me out. I have no more chances to change. i wont.

so I am coming back stronger. Stronger ideas, a stronger team, and a stronger will to serve.

safer. stronger. simply better.