Publications 

Who are you, and where do you begin and end? What are the boundaries of your self, where you know for certain that something is you, belongs to you, and has been made by you? Although these are difficult philosoph ical questions, I am not only asking them as an abstract hypothetical, but because they have a deep urgency. The question of who you are is at imminent risk of being surveilled, stolen, and sold to the highest bidder on the data auction. In fact, this is not just an

Last summer, as I was visiting the Slovenian side of my family, I spent a week in Nova Gorica and Gorizia. In 1947, the Treaty of Paris abruptly drew a border between Italy and the former Yugoslavia, cutting off movement and exchange between the two sides and leaving the regional center, Gorizia, within Italy. In response, Yugoslavia constructed a new town across the border: Nova Gorica. The cities and their populations remained separated until 2004, when Slovenia joined the

To be frank: we are eight hundred people trapped in a snow globe. No, that’s too gentle. We are eight hundred people sharing a single, cracked fishbowl. Everyone knows not just your name, but the name of your ex, your ex’s new situationship, and the exact timestamp of that mildly problem atic thing you said outside the bar that one night. And because it was problematic, everyone knew it was you who said it. That’s how it goes. Constantly seeking that gasping piece of informat

My twin and I lived identical lives: same school, same friends, same taste. But there’s a strain to our relationship, because we resent each other. Or more exactly, I resent her. Mom and Dad treated us equally, that was never an issue, but she has always been angry, and prideful. She has always been her greatest enemy. Her tongue spews poison, which hurts our friends, and then it’s me who apologises, but sometimes she won’t let me, because deep down, she’s scared of the cons

Movements from and since our call on the 16th of April, 2026 I think I’m incredibly autistic – insofar as that is a word that usefully fits the unique fuzziness of my subjective experience to better it. I’ve always known – we’ve always known – that I am very different from other people around me. To begin, I conceptualised myself for a long time as existing in two simultaneous and separate modes. To bring this system, conceived in adolescence to navigate myself and the world,

Why Do I Spread and Leak I have to reign myself in An eye tic, another escaped gasp The twitch of an arm, leg Please give me back control of my body Or at least keep the pretense going Things to do, events to attend A life in need of progressing Waiting for me And yet here you are Hindering me Are you even a you, Or an it Whether single entity or amalgamation Try to understand me Fix the holes, the signs of wear Everything needs to be properly contained within, under cont

i remember when standing next to you didn’t make my skin crawl and i wanted you, just like that we were standing on the shore, looking into the ocean and you said, let’s walk in and drown in there. that summer, i could’ve stayed with you forever there was a blue quilt and blue walls and at night we could hear the waves because we’d leave the window open just a crack, and you always kept some seaglass on the nightstand. and you’d make me shower outside so i wouldn’t get

I am a person who likes certainty. When I plan for the week, I like to know what I’m doing, when I’m doing it, and how I’ll go about it. I make my meal plans, I do my crosswords, and when I’m stressed, I plan my days down to the minute. Obviously, though, there are things I can’t control. Sometimes it rains, and I push my run back to the next day. Sometimes my walk with a friend goes a little too long and throws off my schedule. Sometimes I read the news and feel absolutely t

“Slop” has become a ubiquitous word of late, and it’s a good word. It succinctly encapsulates the mixture of laziness and meaninglessness that characterizes the products of generative AI. There is something missing in the things it produces: the strangely monotone consistency, the eager willingness to agree with whatever you say, no matter how you say it. Slop is shallow, its phrasing repetitive, its ideas endlessly recycled. Yet for something so dull, it is a terrifying conc

On the tip of my cigarette I saw appear Medusa Eight nicotine-snakes around my wrists I rubbed my arms until blood-ink Carved my veins with their secrets Not a trace of what held me yesterday I stumble on a cemetery of ashes while Ithaca on my ribs, I wait For Icarus to fall And yet again nothing Loving an angel made me a saint Holding her breasts, I imprecated With one hand all purgatory, and Done waiting for Decaying Eros I cursed She who had knighted me With

The young poet stepped forward and asked, with a curious twinkle in his eyes, 'What about words, Prophet?’ I hesitated for a moment. Doubting whether to tell him my full truth or to tell him only the part that complies with his young heart’s content. ‘Words are one of our greatest means,' I answered, stressing the words ‘one of’. For words are nothing without intention, and they are nothing without action. Often, words alone are not sufficient to shake those with roots dug de

I am loaded with ink But it evaporates when I write That fountain pen is not sharp enough. To suck the night-coloured fluid running my body That paper isn’t coarse enough. To handle my venom killing my down I would rather say nothing than say incomplete and be misunderstood. For nothing could be munched of this polyhedron that beats. throbs. bleeds. The voices endlessly well up from the sky with the ceilings which lost control of the dawn and down. My ink is the colour of

I stand before them, them who I’m most comfortable with, them who make me feel like I can’t do wrong. I know anything is fine:. My feelings, my interests, or just the regular things we laugh and forget about and soon forget. But I fail to speak. Everything I say is like a cry for help. I try to play the piano that once felt like a part of my body,. My fingertips finding the keys like a child finding its mother’s arms when thunder strikes. This time, like so often nowadays, th

Crowds say I am heartless, for being ignorant, for avoiding the troubles that surround me like shadows. But the truth is I care more than anyone here dares to show. I run from the pain because I cannot bear to face it. My heart aches at thesight of my mother’s cries, my sister’s yells, my father’s dark, rageful nights. And yet, before all, I would fall before them choose my own demise before witnessing theirs. Because my soul would not heal from a break so vast a

How much do you actually know about Black people? In an ideal world, asking this question would not be necessary. But as targets of systemic discrimination, microaggressions, outright racist hatred and victims of stereotyping, many Black people, including myself, wonder how it is possible that being Black remains a foreign reality. In non-Black spaces, the knowledge about Blackness is limited to the entertainment industry or the occasional fact about slavery. While one can ar

Songs, trends, and aesthetics from that year are resurfacing as people try to channel the vibes of that era. But the more I see people romanticizing 2016, the more inauthentic and rehearsed it all feels. This collective nostalgia we are feeling isn’t for the sounds and colors of 2016. What we are actually yearning for is a time when social media was actually social. Nowadays, every post on social media feels like it's trying to sell you something. Sometimes it’s a product,

Submitting my column has turned into a sacred ritual that starts with loafing, excused as naturalistic research, and ends with a cordial 23:59 email. Somewhere between, I Google “economics”, a sad hail-mary, fruitless – until today. Nestled between tired headlines on tariffs and trade deals, a subtle trend emerged. Titles with “economist” fell into two categories: “Economists say you should (...)” and “Economists were wrong about (...)”. To gauge public opinion, I turned to R

For every student that loves live music, it’s gonna be a very expensive year, because we’re living in the hay-day of concerts in the Netherlands. If you just take a look at the Ziggo Dome’s agenda for 2026, you can see how incredibly full of big artists it is. It just came off of a full start of the year, with five comeback concerts of the Dutch hip hop collective New Wave, and an impressive show by Dave. The coming month, there are legendary performances coming up by Hans Zi

“I’ll never be happy again.” Maybe you have whispered this as you anxiously walked through Wilhemina at 16:30 – everything already dark. Maybe you screamed this as you strenuously biked through the freezing rain that’s clamping onto your already cold and pale skin. Maybe you thought this as you prepare your typical pasta pesto… for yourself… on Valentine’s day. Wintertime in the Netherlands is dark and stormy and not in the “fun rum and ginger beer” way. The cold, lack of sun

I hate scary movies. I have never understood their appeal. In my mind, it makes no sense why people would willingly sit through two hours of jump scares and underlying tension just for everything to end (usually) well. For you to go back to your normal life — a relatively boring one in which (hopefully) no serial killer with a ghost mask is chasing you, and no clown is hiding in the gutters to kidnap your brother. And to do this for fun!? Incomprehensible. Alas, isn’t this w